f 


READER  !  walk  up  at  once  (it  will  soon  be  too  late)  and 
buy  at  a  perfectly  ruinous  rate 


,  FABLE  FOE  CEITICS ;  ' 

OR,    BETTER, 

like,  as  a  thing  that   the   reader's  jirst  fancy  may  strike, 

an  old-fashioned  title-page, 
such  as  presents  a  tabular  view  of  the  volume's  contents): . 

A  GLANCE 

AT  A  FEW  OF  OUR  LITERARY  PROGENIES 
(Mrs.  Malapropos  word) 

FROM. 

THE  TUB  OF  DIOGENES; 
A   VOCAL  AND  MUSICAL  MEDLEY. 

THAT   IS, 

A  SERIES  OF  JOKES 


who  accompanies  himself  with  a  rub-a-dub-dub,  full  of  spirit  and  grace, 
on  the  top  of  the  tub. 


BOSTON: 
TIOKNOR   AND    FIELDS. 

M  DCCC  LVI. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1848,  by 

•^o  Xjfcp 
GEORGE  P.  PUTNAM, 

in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  for  the  Southern  District  of 
New-York. 


- 


IT  being  the  commonest  mode  of  procedure,  I  premise  a  few 

candid  remarks 
To  THE  READER  : 

This  trifle,  begun  to  please  only  myself  and  my  own 
private  fancy,  was  laid  on>l  the  shelf.  But  some  friends,  who 
had  seen  it,  induced  me,  by  dint  of  saying  they  liked  it,  to  put 
it  in  print.  That  is,  having  come  to  that  very  conclusion,  I 
consulted  them  when  it  could  make  no  confusion.  For, 
(though  in  the  gentlest  of  ways,)  they  had  hinted  it  was 
scarce  worth  the  while,  I  should  doubtless  have  printed  it. 

I  began  it,  intending  a  Fable,  a  frail,  slender  thing,  rhyme- 
y winged,  with  a  sting  in  its  tail.  But,  by  addings  and 
alterings  not  previously  planned, — digressions  chance-hatched, 
like  birds'  eggs  in  the  sand, — and  dawdlings  to  suit  every 
whimsy's  demand,  (always  freeing  the  bird  which  I  held  in  my 
hand,  for  the  two  perched,  perhaps  out  of  reach,  in  the  tree,) — 
it  grew  by  degrees  to  the  size  which  you  see.  I  was  like  the 

old  woman  that  carried  the  calf,  and  my  neighbors,  like  hers, 

a 


-;'    iv 

no  doubt,  wonder  and  laugh,  and  when,  my  strained  arms  with 
their  grown  burthen  full,  I  call  it  my  Fable,  they  call  it  a 
bull. 

Having  scrawled  at  full  gallop  (as  far  as  that  goes)  in  a 
style  that  is  neither  good  verse  nor  bad  prose,  and  being  a 
person  whom  nobody  knows,  some  people  will  say  I  am  rather 
more  free  with  my  readers  than  it  is  becoming  to  be,  thai 
I  seem  to  expect  them  to  wait  on  my  leisure  in  following 
wherever  I  wander  at  pleasure,  that,  in  short,  I  take  more 
than  a  young  author's  lawful  ease,  and  laugh  in  a  queer  way 
so  like  Mephistopheles,  that  the  public  will  doubt,  as  they  grope 
through  my  rhythm,  if  in  truth  I  am  making  fun  at  them  or 
with  them. 

So  the  excellent  Public  is  hereby  assured  that  the  sale  of 
my  book  is  already  secured.  For  there  is  not  a  poet  through 
out  the  whole  land,  but  will  purchase  a  copy  or  two  out  of 
hand,  in  the  fond  expectation  of  being  amused  in  it,  by  seeing 
his  betters  cut-up  and  abused  in  it.  Now,  I  find,  by  a  pretty 
exact  calculation,  there  are  something  like  ten  thousand  bards 
in  the  nation,  of  that  special  variety  whom  the  Review  and 
Magazine  critics  call  lofty  and  true,  and  about  thirty  thousand 
(this  tribe  is  increasing)  of  the  kinds  who  are  termed  full  of 
promise  and  pleasing.  The  Public  will  see  by  a  glance  at  this 
schedule,  that  they  cannot  expect  me  to  be  over-sedulous  aboul 


courting  them,  since  it  seems  I  have  got  enough  fuel   made 
sure  of  for  boiling  my  pot. 

As  for  such  of  our  poets  as  find  not  their  names  mentioned,, 
once  in  my  pages,  with  praises  or  blames,  let  them  SEND  IN 
THEIR  CARDS,  without  further  DELAY,  to  my  friend  G.  P.  PUT 
NAM,  Esquire,  in  Broadway,  where  a  LIST  will  be  kept  with 
the  strictest  regard  to  the  day  and  the  hour  of  receiving  the 
card.  Then,  taking  them  up  as  I  chance  to  have  time,  (that 
is,  if  their  names  can  be  twisted  in  rhyme,)  I  will  honestly 
give  each  his  PROPER  POSITION,  at  the  rate  of  ONE  AUTHOR 
to  each  NEW  EDITION.  Thus  a  PREMIUM  is  offered  suffi 
ciently  HIGH  (as  the  magazines  say  when  they  tell  their  best 
lie)  to  induce  bards  to  CLUB  their  resources  and  buy  the 
balance  of  every  edition,  until  they  have  all  of  them  fairly 
been  run  through  the  mill. 

One  word  to  such  readers  (judicious  and  wise)  as  read 
books  with  something  behind  the  mere  eyes,  of  whom  in  the 
country,  perhaps,  there  are  two,  including  myself,  gentle 
reader,  and  you.  All  the  characters  sketched  in  this  slight 
jeu  d' esprit,  though,  it  may  be,  they  seem,  here  and  there, 
rather  free,  and  drawn  from  a  Mephistophelian  stand-point, 
are  meant  to  be  faithful,  and  that  is  the  grand  point,  and  none 
but  an  owl  would  feel  sore  at  a  rub  from  a  jester  who  tells 
you,  without  any  subterfuge,  that  he  sits  in  Diogenes'  tub. 


A  PRELIMINARY  NOTE  TO  THE  SECOND  EDITION, 

though  it  well  may  be  reckoned,  of  all  composition, 
the  species  at  once  most  delightful  and  healthy,  is  a 
thing  which  an  author,  unless  he  be  wealthy  and  willing 
to  pay  for  that  kind  of  delight,  is  not,  in  all  instances, 
called  on  to  write.  Though  there  are,  it  is  said,  who, 
their  spirits  to  cheer,  slip  in  a  new  title-page  three  times 
a  year,  and  in  this  way  snuff  up  an  imaginary  savor  of 
that  sweetest  of  dishes,  the  popular  favor, — much  as  if  a 
starved  painter  should  fall  to  and  treat  the  Ugolino  inside 
to  a  picture  of  meat. 

You  remember  (if  not,  pray  turn  over  and  look)  that, 
in  writing  the  preface  which  ushered  my  book,  I  treated 
you,  excellent  Public,. not  merely  with  a  cool  disregard, 
but  downright  cavalierly.  Now  I  would  not  take  back 
the  least  thing  I  then  said,  though  I  thereby  could  butter 
both  sides  of  my  bread,  for  I  never  could  see  that  an 
author  owed  aught  to  the  people  he  solaced,  diverted,  or 
taught ;  and,  as  for  mere  fame,  I  have  long  ago  learned  that 
the  persons  by  whom  it  is  finally  earned,  are  those  with 
whom  your  verdict  weighed  not  a  pin,  unsustained  by 

the  higher  court  sitting  within. 

(1)  1 


But  I  wander  from  what  I  intended  to  say — that  you 
have,  namely,  shown  such  a  liberal  way  of  thinking,  andi 
so  much  aesthetic  perception  of  anonymous  worth  in  the  ] 
handsome  reception  you  gave  to  my  book,  spite  of  some 
private  piques,  (having  bought  the  first  thousand  in  barely 
two  weeks,)  that  I  think,  past  a  doubt,  if  you  measured  I 
the  phiz  of  your's  most  devotedly,  Wonderful  Quiz,  youi 
would  find  that  its  vertical  section  was  shorter,  by  an  i 
inch  and  two  tenths,  or  'twixt  that  and  a  quarter. 

You  have  watched  a  child  playing — in  those  won 
drous  years  when  belief  is  not  bound  to  the  eyes  and  the 
ears,  and  the  vision  divine  is  so  clear  and  unmarred, 
that  each  baker  of  pies  in  the  dirt  is  a  bard?  Give  a 
knife  and  a  shingle,  he  fits  out  a  fleet,  and,  on  that  little 
mudpuddle  over  the  street,  his  invention,  in  purest  good 
faith,  will  make  sail  round  the  globe  with  a  puff  of  his 
breath  for  a  gale,  will  visit,  in  barely  ten  minutes,  all 
climes,  and  find  Northwestern  passages  hundreds  of 
times.  Or,  suppose  the  young  Poet  fresh  stored  with  de 
lights  from  that  Bible  of  childhood  the  Arabian  Nights,  he 
will  turn  to  a  crony  and  cry,  "  Jack,  let's  play  that  I  am 
a  Genius  !"  Jacky  straightway  makes  Aladdin's  lamp 
out  of  a  stone,  and,  for  hours,  they  enjoy  each  his  own 
supernatural  powers.  This  is  all  very  pretty  and  pleasant, 
but  then  suppose  our  two  urchins  have  grown  into  men, 
and  both  have  turned  authors, — one  says  to  his  brother, 
"  Let's  play  we're  the  American  somethings  or  other, 
(only  let  them  be  big  enough,  no  matter  what.)  Come 


you  shall  be  Goethe  or  Pope,  which  you  choose ;  I'll  be 
Coleridge,  and  both  shall  write  mutual  reviews."  So 
hey  both  (as  mere  strangers)  before  many  days,  send 
each  other  a  cord  of  anonymous  bays.  Each,  in  piling 
lis  epithets,  smiles  in  his  sleeve  to  see  what  his  friend 
can  be  made  to  believe ;  each,  in  reading  the  other's  un 
biassed  review,  thinks — Here's  pretty  high  praise,  but  no 
nore  than  is  true.  Well,  we  laugh  at  them  both,  and 
yet  make  no  great  fuss  when  the  same  farce  is  acted  to 
benefit  us.  Even  I,  who,  if  asked,  scarce  a  month  since, 
what  Fudge  meant,  should  have  answered,  the  dear 
Public's  critical  judgment,  begin  to  think  sharpwitted 
Horace  spoke  sooth  when  he  said,  that  the  Public  some- 
imes  hit  the  truth. 

In  reading  these  lines,  you  perhaps  have  a  vision  of 
a  person  in  pretty  good  health  and  condition,  and  yet, 
since  I  put  forth  my  primary  edition,  I  have  been  crushed, 
scorched,  withered,  used  up  and  put  down,  (by  Smith 
with  the  cordial  assistance  of  Brown,)  in  all,  if  you  put 
any  faith  in  my  rhymes,  to  the  number  of  ninety-five 
several  times,  and,  while  I  am  writing — I  tremble  to 
think  of  it,  for  I  may  at  this  moment  be  just  on  the  brink 
of  it — Molybdostom,  angry  at  being  omitted,  has  begun 
a  critique, — am  I  not  to  be  pitied  ?* 

Now  I  shall  not  crush  them  since,  indeed,  for  that 

*  The  wise  Scandinavians  probably  called  their  bards  by  the  queer- 
iooking  title  of  Scald,  in  a  delicate  way,  as  it  were,  just  to  hint  to  the  world 
the  hot  water  they  always  get  into. 


matter,  no  pressure  I  know  of  could  render  them  flatter 
nor  wither,  nor  scorch  them, — no  action  of  fire  couk 
make  either  them  or  their  articles  drier;  nor  waste  time 
in  putting  them  down — I  am  thinking  not  their  own  self 
inflation  will  keep  them  from  sinking;  for  there's  this 
contradiction  about  the  whole  bevy — though  without  the 
least  weight,  they  are  awfully  heavy.  No,  my  dea: 
honest  bore,  surdo  fabulam  narras,  they  are  no  more  tc 
me  than  a  rat  in  the  arras.  I  can  walk  with  the  Doctor 
get  facts  from  the  Don,  or  draw  out  the  Lambish  quintes 
sence  of  John,  and  feel  nothing  more  than  a  half-comic 
sorrow,  to  think  that  they  all  will  be  lying  to-morrov 
tossed  carelessly  up  on  the  waste-paper  shelves,  and  for 
gotten  by  all  but  their  half-dozen  selves.  Once  snug  ii 
my  attic,  my  fire  in  a  roar,  I  leave  the  whole  pack  oi 
them  outside  the  door.  With  Hakluyt  or  Purchas 
wander  away  to  the  black  northern  seas  or  barbaric 
Cathay  ;  get  fou  with  O'Shanter,  and  sober  me  thei 
with  that  builder  of  brick-kilnish  dramas,  rare  Ben 
snuff  Herbert,  as  holy  as  a  flower  on  a  grave ;  wit! 
Fletcher  wax  tender,  o'er  Chapman  grow  brave  ;  wit! 
Marlowe  or  Kyd  take  a  fine  poet-rave ;  in  Very,  mos 
Hebrew  of  Saxons,  find  peace;  with  Lycidas  welter  or 
vext  Irish  seas ;  with  Webster  grow  wild,  and  climl 
earthward  again,  down  by  mystical  Browne's  Jacob's 
ladder-like  brain,  to  that  spiritual  Pepys  (Cotton's  ver 
sion)  Montaigne ;  find  a  new  depth  in  Wordsworth 
undreamed  of  before, — that  divinely-inspired,  wise,  deep \ 


tender,  grand, — bore.  Or,  out  of  my  study,  the  scholar 
thrown  off,  nature  holds  up  her  shield  'gainst  the  sneer 
and  the  scoff;  the  landscape,  forever  consoling  and 
;kind,  pours  her  wine  and  her  oil  on  the  smarts  of  the 
|  mind.  The  waterfall,  scattering  its  vanishing  gems  ;  the 
tall  grove  of  hemlocks,  with  moss  on  their  stems,  like 
plashes  of  sunlight;  the  pond  in  the  woods,  where  no 
foot  but  mine  and  the  bittern's  intrudes  ;  these  are  all  my 
kind  neighbors,  and  leave  me  no  wish  to  say  aught  to 
you  all,  my  poor  critics,  but — pish !  I  have  buried  the 
hatchet ;  I  am  twisting  an  allumette  out  of  one  of  you 
now,  and  relighting  my  calumet.  In  your  private  ca 
pacities,  come  when  you  please,  I  will  give  you  my 
hand  and  a  fresh  pipe  a-piece. 

As  I  ran  through  the  leaves  of  my  poor  litttle  book, 
to  take  a  fond  author's  first  tremulous  look,  it  was  quite 
an  excitement  to  hunt  the  errata,  sprawled  in  as  birds' 
tracks  are  in  some  kinds  of  strata  (only  these  made 
things  crookeder.)  Fancy  an  heir,  that  a  father  had  seen 
born  well-featured  and  fair,  turning  suddenly  wry-nosed, 
club-footed,  squint-eyed,  hare-lipped,  wapper-jawed,  car 
rot-haired,  from  a  pride  become  an  aversion, — my  case  was 
yet  worse.  A  club-foot  (by  way  of  a  change)  in  a  verse, 
I  might  have  forgiven,  an  o's  being  wry,  a  botch  in  an  e, 
or  a  cock  in  an  i, — but  to  have  the  sweet  babe  of  my  brain 
served  in  pi !  I  am  not  queasy-stomached,  but  such  a 
Thyestean  banquet  as  that  was  quite  out  of  the  ques 
tion. 


In  the  edition  now  issued,  no  pains  are  neglected; 
and  my  verses,  as  orators  say,  stand  corrected.  Yet 
some  blunders  remain  of  the  public's  own  make,  which 
I  wish  to  correct  for  my  personal  sake.  For  instance,  a 
character  drawn  in  pure  fun  and  condensing  the  traits 
of  a  dozen  in  one,  has  been,  as  I  hear  by  some  persons 
applied  to  a  good  friend  of  mine,  whom  to  stab  in  the 
side,  as  we  walked  along  chatting  and  joking  together, 
would  not  be  my  way.  I  can  hardly  tell  whether  a 
question  will  ever  arise  in  which  he  and  I  should  by 
any  strange  fortune  agree,  but  meanwhile  my  esteem  for 
him  grows  as  I  know  him,  and,  though  not  the  best  judge 
upon  earth  of  a  poem,  he  knows  what  it  is  he  is  saying 
and  why,  and  is  honest  and  fearless,  two  good  points 
which  I  have  not  found  so  rife  I  can  easily  smother  my 
love  for  them,  whether  on  my  side  or  'tother. 

For  my  other  anonymi,  you  may  be  sure  that  I  know 
what  is  meant  by  a  caricature,  and  what  by  a  portrait. 
There  are  those  who  think  it  is  capital  fun  to  be  spattering 
their  ink  on  quiet  unquarrelsome  folk,  but  the  minute  the 
game  changes  sides  and  the  others  begin  it,  they  see 
something  savage  and  horrible  in  it.  As  for  me  I  re 
spect  neither  women  or  men  for  their  gender,  nor  own 
any  sex  in  a  pen.  I  choose  just  to  hint  to  some  causeless 
unfriends  that,  as  far  as  I  know,  there  are  always  two 
ends  (and  one  of  them  heaviest,  too)  to  a  staff]  and  two 
parties  also  to  every  good  laugh. 


A  FABLE  FOE  THE  CRITICS. 


PHCEBUS,  sitting  one  day  in  a  laurel-tree's  shade, 
Was  reminded  of  Daphne,  of  whom  it  was  made, 
For  the  god   being  one  day  too  warm  in  his  wooing, 
She  took  to  the  tree  to  escape  his  pursuing ; 
Be  the  cause  what  it  might,  from  his  offers  she  shrunk, 
And,  Ginevra-like,  shut  herself  up  in  a  trunk ; 
And,  though  'twas  a  step  into  which  he  had  driven  her, 
He  somehow  or  other  had  never  forgiven  her ; 
Her  memory  he  nursed  as  a  kind  of  a  tonic, 
Something  bitter  to  chew  when  he'd  play  the  Byronic, 
And  I  can't  count  the  obstinate  nymphs  that  he  brought  over, 
By  a  strange  kind  of  smile  he  put  on  when  he  thought  of  hei. 
"  My  case  is  like  Dido's,"  he  sometimes  remark'd, 
"  When  I  last  saw  my  love,  she  was  fairly  embark'd  ; 


8  A    FABLE    FOR    THE    CRITICS. 

Let  hunters  from  me  take  this  saw  when  they  need  it, 

— You're  not  always  sure  of  your  game  when  you've  tree'd  it. 

Just  conceive  such  a  change  taking  place  in  one's  mistress ! 

What  romance  would  be  left  ? — who  can  flatter  or  kiss  trees  ? 

And  for  mercy's  sake,  how  could  one  keep  up  a  dialogue 

With  a  dull  wooden  thing  that  will  live  and  will  die  a  log, — 

Not  to  say  that  the  thought  would  forever  intrude 

That  you've  less  chance  to  win  her  the  more  she  is  wood  ? 

Ah !  it  went  to  my  heart,  and  the  memory  still  grieves, 

To  see  those  loved  graces  all  taking  their  leaves ; 

Those  charms  beyond  speech,  so  enchanting  but  now, 

As  they  left  me  forever,  each  making  its  bough  ! 

If  her  tongue  had  a  tang  sometimes  more  than  was  right, 

Her  new  bark  is  worse  than  ten  times  her  old-bite." 

Now,  Daphne, — before  she  was  happily  treeified, — 
Over  all  other  flowers  the  lily  had  deified, 
And  when  she  expected  the  god  on  a  visit, 
('Twas  before  he  had  made  his  intentions  explicit,) 
Some  buds  she  arranged  with  a  vast  deal  of  care, 
To  look  as  if  artlessly  twined  in  her  hair, 
Where  they  seemed,  as  he  said,  when  he  paid  his  addresses, 
Like  the  day  breaking  through  the  long  night  of  her  tresses ; 
So,  whenever  he  wished  to  be  quite  irresistible, 
Like  a  man  with  eight  trumps  in  his  hand  at  a  whist-table, 
(I  feared  me  at  first  that  the  rhyme  was  untwistable, 


Though  I  might  have  lugged  in  an  allusion  to  Cristabel,) — 

He  would  take  up  a  lily,  and  gloomily  look  in  it, 

As  I  shall  at  the ,  when  they  cut  up  my  book  in  it. 

Well,  here,  after  all  the  bad  rhyme  I've  been  spinning, 
I've  got  back  at  last  to  my  story's  beginning : 
Sitting  there,  as  I  say,  in  the  shade  of  his  mistress, 
As  dull  as  a  volume  of  old  Chester  mysteries, 
Or  as  those  puzzling  specimens,  which,  in  old  histories, 
We  read  of  his  verses — the  Oracles,  namely, — 
(I  wonder  the  Greeks  should  have  swallowed  them  tamely, 
For  one  might  bet  safely  whatever  he  has  to  risk, 
They  were  laid  at  his  door  by  some  ancient  Miss  Asterisk, 
And  so  dull  thay.he  men  who  retailed  them  out-doors 
Got  the  ill  name  of  '  augurs,'  because  they  were  bores,) — 
First,  he  mused  what  the  animal  substance  or  herb  is 
Would  induce  a  moustache,  for  you  know  he's  iniberbis  ; 
Then  he  shuddered  to  think  how  his  youthful  position 
Was  assailed  by  the  age  of  his  son  the  physician  ; 
At  some  poems  he  glanced,  had  been  sent  to  him  lately, 
And  the  metre  and  sentiment  puzzled  him  greatly ; 
"MehercTe!  I'd  make  such  proceedings  felonious, — 
Have  they  all  of  them  slept  in  the  cave  of  Trophonius  ? 
Look  well  to  your  seat,  'tis  like  taking  an  airing 
On  a  corduroy  road,  and  that  out  of  repairing ; 
It  leads  one,  'tis  true,  through  the  primitive  forest, 


10  A   FABLE    FOR   THE    CRITICS. 

Grand  natural  features — but,  then,  one  has  no  rest ; 

You  just  catch  a  glimpse  of  some  ravishing  distance, 

When  a  jolt  puts  the  whole  of  it  out  of  existence, — 

Why  not  use  their  ears,  if  they  happen  to  have  any  ?" 

— Here  the  laurel-leaves  murmured  the  name  of  poor  Daphne. 

"  O,  weep  with  me,  Daphne,"  he  sighed,  "  for  you  know  it's 
A  terrible  thing  to  be  pestered  with  poets ! 
But,  alas,  she  is  dumb,  and  the  proverb  holds  good, 
She  never  will  cry  till  she's  out  of  the  wood ! 
What  wouldn't  I  give  if  I  never  had  known  of  her  ? 
'Twere  a  kind  of  relief  had  I  something  to  groan  over ; 
If  I  had  but  some  letters  of  hers,  now,  to  toss  over, 
I  might  turn  for  the  nonce  a  Byronic  philosopher, 
And  bewitch  all  the  flats  by  bemoaning  the  loss  of  her. 
One  needs  something  tangible,  though  to  begin  on — 
A  loom,  as  it  were,  for  the  fancy  to  spin  on  ; 
What  boots  all  your  grist  1  it  can  never  be  ground 
Till  a  breeze  makes  the  arms  of  the  windmill  go  round, 
(Or,  if  'tis  a  water-mill,  alter  the  metaphor, 
And  say  it  won't  stir,  save  the  wheel  be  well  wet  afore, 
Or  lug  in  some  stuff  about  water  "  so  dreamily," — 
It  is  not  a  metaphor,  though,  'tis  a  simile ;) 
A  lily,  perhaps,  would  set  my  mill  agoing, 
For  just  at  this  season,  I  think,  they  are  blowing, 
Here,  somebody,  fetch  one,  not  very  far  hence 


A    FABLE    FOR    THE    CRITICS.  11 

They're  in  bloom  by  the  score,  'tis  but  climbing  a  fence ; 
There's  a  poe*t  hard  by,  who  does  nothing  but  fill  his 
Whole  garden,  from  one  end  to  t'other,  with  lilies ; 
A  very  good  plan,  were  it  not  for'satiety, 
One  longs  for  a  weed  here  and  there,  for  variety ; 
Though  a  weed  is  no  more  than  a  flower  in  disguise, 
Which  is  seen  through  at  once,  if  love  give  a  man  eyes. 

Now  there  happened  to  be  among  Phcebus's  followers, 
A  gentleman,  one  of  the  omnivorous  swallowers 
Who  bolt  every  book  that  comes  out  of  the  press, 
Without  the  least  question  of  larger  or  less, 
Whose  stomachs  are  strong  at  the  expense  of  their  head, — 
For  reading  new  books  is  like  eating  new  bread, 
One  can  bear  it  at  first,  but  by  gradual  steps  he 
Is  brought  to  death's  door  of  a  mental  dyspepsy. 
On  a  previous  stage  of  existence,  our  Hero 
Had  ridden  outside,  with  the  glass  below  zero ; 
He  had  been,  'tis  a  fact  you  may  safely  rely  on, 
Of  a  very  old  stock  a  most  eminent  scion, — 
A  stock  all  fresh  quacks  their  fierce  boluses  ply  on, 
Who  stretch  the  new  boots  Earth's  unwilling  to  try  on, 
Whom  humbugs  of  all  shapes  and  sorts  keep  their  eye  on, 
Whose  hair  Js  in  the  mortar  of  every  new  Zion, 
Who,  when  whistles  are  dear,  go  directly  and  buy  one, 
Who  think  slavery  a  crime  that  we  must  not  say  fie  on, 


JC'  "FABLE    FOR    THE    CRITICS. 


Who  hunt,  if  they  e'er  hunt  at  all,  with  the  lion, 
(Though  they  hunt  lions  also,  whenevei  they  spy  one,) 
Who  contrive  to  make  every  good  fortune  a  wry  one, 
And  at  last  choose  the  hard  bed  of  honor  to  die  on, 
Whose  pedigree  traced  to  earth's  earliest  years, 
Is  longer  than  any  thing  else  but  their  ears  ;  — 
In  short,  he  was  sent  into  life  with  the  wrong  key, 
He  unlocked  the  door,  and  stept  forth  a  poor  donkey. 
Though  kicked  and  abused  by  his  bipedal  betters, 
Yet  he  filled  no  mean  place  in  the  kingdom  of  letters; 
Far  happier  than  many  a  literary  hack, 
He  bore  only  paper-mill  rags  on  his  back  ; 
(For  it  makes  a  vast  difference  which  side  the  mill 
One  expends  on  the  paper  his  labor  and  skill  ;) 
So,  when  his  soul  waited  a  new  transmigration, 
And  Destiny  balanced  'twixt  this  and  that  station, 
Not  having  much  time  to  expend  upon  bothers, 
Remembering  he'd  had  some  connexion  with  authors, 
And  considering  his  four  legs  had  grown  paralytic,  _ 
She  set  him  on  two,  and  he  came  forth  a  critic. 

Through  his  babyhood  no  kind  of  pleasure  he  took 
In  any  amusement  but  tearing  a  book  ; 
For  him  there  was  no  intermediate  stage, 
From  babyhood  up  to  straight-laced  middle  age  ; 
There  were  years  when  he  didn't  wear  coat-tails  behind 


V 

,w 

A    FABLE    FOR   THE    CRIT 


But  a  boy  he  could  never  be  rightly  defined ; 

Like  the  Irish  Good  Folk,  though  in  length  scarce  a  span, 

From  the  womb  he  came  gravely,  a  little  old  man  ; 

While  other  boys'  trowsers  demanded  the  toil 

Of  the  motherly  fingers  on  all  kinds  of  soil, 

Red,  yellow,  brown,  black,  clayey,  gravelly,  loamy, 

He  sat  in  a  corner  and  read  Viri  Romse. 

He  never  was  known  to  unbend  or  to  revel  once 

In  base,  marbles,  hockey,  or  kick  up  the  devil  once ; 

He  was  just  one  of  those  who  excite  the  benevolence 

Of  old  prigs  who  sound  the  soul's  depths  with  a  ledger, 

And  are  on  the  look  out-for  some  young  men  to  "  edger- 

-cate,"  as  they  call  it,  who  won't  be  too  costly, 

And  who'll  afterward  take  to  the.^  ministry  mostly ; 

Who  always  wear  spectacles,  always  look  bilious, 

Always  keep  on  good  terms  with  each  mater -familias 

Throughout  the  whole  parish,  and  manage  to  rear 

Ten  boys  like  themselves,  on  four  hundred  a  year ; 

Who,  fulfilling  in  turn  the  same  fearful  conditions, 

Either  preach  through  their  noses,  or  go  upon  missions. 

In  this  way  our  hero  got  safely  to  College, 
Where  he  bolted  alike  both  his  commons  and  knowledge ; 
A  reading-machine,  always  wound  up  and  going, 
He  mastered  whatever  was  not  worth  the  knowing, 
Appeared  in  a  gown,  and  a  vest  of  black  satin, 


14  A    FABLE    FOR    THE    CRITICS. 

To  spout  such  a  Gothic  oration  in  Latin, 
That  Tully  could  never  have  made  out  a  word  in  it, 
(Though  himself  was  the  model  the  author  preferred  in  it,) 
And  grasping  the  parchment  which  gave  him  in  fee, 
All  the  mystic  and  so-forths  contained  in  A.  B., 
He  was  launched  (life  is  always  compared  to  a  sea,) 
With  just  enough  learning,  and  skill  for  the  using  it, 
To  prove  he'd  a  brain,  by  forever  confusing  it. 
So  worthy  Saint  Benedict,  piously  burning 
With  the  holiest  zeal  against  secular  learning, 
Nesciensque  scienter,  as  writers  express  it, 
Indoctusque  sapienter  a  Roma  recessit. 

'Twould  be  endless  to  tell  you  the  things  that  he  knew, 
All  separate  facts,  undeniably  true, 
But  with  him  or  each  other  they'd  nothing  to  do; 
No  power  of  combining,  arranging,  discerning, 
Digested  the  masses  he  learned  into  learning ; 
There  was  one  thing  in  life  he  had  practical  knowledge  for, 
(And  this,  you  will  think,  he  need  scarce  go  to  college  for,) 
Not  a  deed  would  he  do,  nor  a  word  would  he  utter, 
Till  he'd  weighed  its  relations  to  plain  bread  and  butter. 
When  he  left  Alma  Mater,  he  practised  his  wits 
In  compiling  the  journals'  historical  bits, — 
Of  shops  broken  open,  men  falling  in  fits, 
Great  fortunes  in  England  bequeathed  to  poor  printers, 


A   FABLE   FOR    THE    CRITICS.  15 

And  cold  spells,  the  coldest  for  many  past  winters,-— 

Then,  rising  by  industry,  knack,  and  address, 

Got  notices  up  for  an  unbiassed  press, 

With  a  mind  so  well  poised,  it  seemed  equally  made  for 

Applause  or  abuse,  just  which  chanced  to  be  paid  for ; 

From  this  point  his  progress  was  rapid  and  sure, 

To  the  post  of  a  regular  heavy  reviewer. 

And  here  I  must  say,  he  wrote  excellent  articles 
On  the  Hebraic  points,  or  the  force  of  Greek  particles, 
They  filled  up  the  space  nothing  else  was  prepared  for, 
And  nobody  read  that  which  nobody  cared  for  ; 
If  any  old  book  reached  a  fiftieth  edition, 
He  could  fill  forty  pages  with  safe  erudition ; 
.He  could  gauge  the  old  books  by  the  old  set  of  rules, 
And  his  very  old  nothings  pleased  very  old  fools  ; 
But  give  him  a  new  book,  fresh  out  of  the  heart, 
And  you  put  him  at  sea  without  compass  or  chart, — 
His  blunders  aspired  to  the  rank  of  an  art ; 
For  his  lore  was  engraft,  something  foreign  that  grew  in  him, 
Exhausting  the  sap  of  the  native  and  true  in  him, 
So  that  when  a  man  came  with  a  soul  that  was  new  in  him, 
Carving  new  forms  of  truth  out  of  Nature's  old  granite, 
New  and  old  at  their  birth,  like  Le  Verrier's  planet, 
Which,  to  get  a  true  judgment,  themselves  must  create 
In  the  soul  of  their  critic  the  measure  and  weight, 


16 


A    FABLE    FOR    THE    CRITICS. 


Being  rather  themselves  a  fresh  standard  of  grace, 
To  compute  their  own  judge,  and  assign  him  his  place, 
Our  reviewer  would  crawl  all  about  it  and  round  it, 
And,  reporting  each  circumstance  just  as  he  found  it, 
Without  the  least  malice, — his  record  would  be 
Profoundly  aesthetic  as  that  of  a  flea, 

Which,  supping  on  Wordsworth,  should  print,  for  our  sakes, 
Recollections  of  nights  with  the  Bard  of  the  Lakes, 
Or,  borne  by  an  Arab  guide,  ventured  to  render  a 
General  view  of  the  ruins  at  Denderah. 

As  I  said,  he  was  never  precisely  unkind, 
The  defect  in  his  brain  was  mere  absence  of  mind ; 
If  he  boasted,  'twas  simply  that  he  was  self-made, 
A  position  which  I,  for  one,  never  gainsaid, 
My  respect  for  my  Maker  supposing  a  skill 
In  his  works  which  our  hero  would  answer  but  ill ; 
And  I  trust  that  the  mould  which  he  used  may  be  cracked,  or  he, 
Made  bold  by  success,  may  make  broad  his  phylactery, 
And  set  up  a  kind  of  a  man-manufactory, 
An  event  which  I  shudder  to  think  about,  seeing 
That  Man  is  a  moral,  accountable  being. 

He  meant  well  enough,  but  was  still  in  the  way, 
As  a  dunce  always  is,  let  him  be  where  he  may ; 
Indeed,  they  appear  to  come  into  existence 


A    FABLE    FOR    THE    CRITICS.  17 

To  impede  other  folks  with  their  awkward  assistance ; 

If  you  set  up  a  dunce  on  the  very  North  pole, 

All  alone  with  himself,  I  believe,  on  my  soul, 

He'd  manage  to  get  betwixt  somebody's  shins, 

And  pitch  him  down  bodily,  all  in  his  sins, 

To  the  grave  polar  bears  sitting  round^n  the  ice, 

All  shortening  their  grace,  to  be  in  for  a  slice  ; 

Or,  if  he  found  nobody  else  there  to  pother, 

Why,  one  of  his  legs  would  just  trip  up  the  other, 

For  there's  nothing  we  read  of  in  torture's  inventions, 

Like  a  well-meaning  dunce,  with  the  best  of  intentions. 

A  terrible  fellow  to  meet  in  society, 
Not  the  toast  that  he  buttered  was  ever  so  dry  at  tea ; 
There  he'd  sit  at  the  table  and  stir  in  his  sugar, 
Crouching  close  for  a  spring,  all  the  while,  like  a  cougar ; 
Be  sure  of  your  facts,  of  your  measures  and  weights, 
Of  your  time — he's  as  fond  as  an  Arab  of  dates  ; — 
You'll  be  telling,  perhaps,  in  your  comical  way, 
Of  something  you've  seen  in  the  course  of  the  day  ; 
And,  just  as  you're  tapering  out  the  conclusion, 
You  venture  an  ill-fated  classic  allusion, — 
The  girls  have  all  got  their  laughs  ready,  when,  whack  ! 
The  cougar  comes  down  on  your  thunderstruck  back  ; 
You  had  left  out  a  comma,— your  Greek's  put  in  joint, 

And  pointed  at  cost  of  your  story's  whole  point. 
2 


18  A    FABLE    FOR    THE    CRITICS. 

In  the  course  of  the  evening,  you  venture  on  certain 

Soft  speeches  to  Anne,  in  the  shade  of  the  curtain  ; 

You  tell  her  your  heart  can  be  likened  to  one  flower, 

"  And  that,  oh  most  charming  of  women,  's  the  sunflower, 

Which  turns" — here  a  clear  nasal  voice,  to  your  terror, 

From  outside  the  curtain,  says  "  that's  all  an  error." 

As  for  him,  he's — no  matter,  he  never  grew  tender, 

Sitting  after  a  ball,  with  his  feet  on  the  fender, 

Shaping  somebody's  sweet  features  out  of  cigar  smoke, 

(Though  he'd  willingly  grant  you  that  such  doings  are  smoke 

All  women  he  damns  with  mutdbile  semper, 

And  if  ever  he  felt  something  like  love's  distemper, 

'Twas  toward  a  young  lady  who  spoke  ancient  Mexican, 

And  assisted  her  father  in  making  a  lexicon ; 

Though  I  recollect  hearing  him  get  quite  ferocious 

About  one  Mary  Clausum,  the  mistress  of  Grotius, 

Or  something  of  that  sort, — but,  no  more  to  bore  ye 

With  character-painting,  I'll  turn  to  my  story. 

Now,  Apollo,  who  finds  it  convenient  sometimes 
To  get  his  court  clear  of  the  makers  of  rhymes, 
The  genus,  I  think  it  is  called,  irritabile, 
Every  one  of  whom  thinks  himself  treated  most  shabbily, 
And  nurses  a — what  is  it  ? — immedicdbile, 
Which  keeps  him  at  boiling-point,  hot  for  a  quarrel, 
As  bitter  as  wormwood,  and  sourer  than  sorrel, 


A    FABLE   FOR   THE    CRITICS.  19 

If  any  poor  devil  but  looks  at  a  laurel ; — 

Apollo,  I  say,  being  sick  of  their  rioting, 

(Though  he  sometimes  acknowledged  their  verse  had  a  quieting 

Effect  after  dinner,  and  seemed  to  suggest  a 

Retreat  to  the  shrine  of  a  tranquil  siesta,) 

Kept  our  Hero  at  hand,  who,  by  means  of  a  bray, 

Which  he  gave  to  the  life,  drove  the  rabble  away ; 

And  if  that  wouldn't  do,  he  was  sure  to  succeed, 

If  he  took  his  review  out  and  offered  to  read ; 

Or,  failing  in  plans  of  this  milder  description, 

He  would  ask  for  their  aid  to  get  up  a  subscription, 

Considering  that  authorship  wasn't  a  rich  craft, 

To  print  the  "  American  drama  of  Witchcraft." 

"  Stay,  I'll  read  you  a  scene," — but  he  hardly  began, 

Ere  Apollo  shrieked  "  Help  !"  and  the  authors  all  ran : 

And  once,  when  these  purgatives  acted  with  less  spirit, 

And  the  desperate  case  asked  a  remedy  desperate, 

He  drew  from  his  pocket  a  foolscap  epistle, 

As  calmly  as  if  'twere  a  nine-barrelled  pistol, 

And  threatened  them  all  with  the  judgment  to  come, 

Of  "  A  wandering  Star's  first  impressions  of  Rome." 

"  Stop  !  stop  !"  with  their  hands  o'er  their  ears  screamed  the 

Muses, 

"  He  may  go  off  and  murder  himself,  if  he  chooses, 
'Twas  a  means  self-defence  only  sanctioned  his  trying, 
'Tis  mere  massacre  now  that  the  enemy's  flying ; 


A    FABLE    FOR    THE    CRITICS. 

If  he's  forced  to  't  again,  and  we  happen  to  be  there, 

Give  us  each  a  large  handkerchief  soaked  in  strong  ether." 

I  called  this  a  "  Fable  for  Critics ;"  you  think  it's 
More  like  a  display  of  my  rhythmical  trinkets ; 
My  plot,  like  an  icicle,  's  slender  and  slippery, 
Every  moment  more  slender,  and  likely  to  slip  awry, 
And  the  reader  unwilling  in  loco  desipere, 
Is  free  to  jump  over  as  much  of  my  frippery 
As  he  fancies,  and,  if  he's  a  provident  skipper,  he^ 
May  have  an  Odyssean  sway  of  the  gales, 
And  get  safe  into  port,  ere  his  patience  all  fails ; 
Moreover,  although  'tis  a  slender  return 
For  your  toil  and  expense,  yet  my  paper  will  burn, 
And,  if  you  have  manfully  struggled  thus  far  with  me, 
You  may  e'en  twist  me  up,  and  just  light  your  cigar  with  me 
If  too  angry  for  that,  you  can  tear  me  in  pieces, 
And  my  membra  disjecta  consign  to  the  breezes, 
A  fate  like  great  Ratzau's,  whom  one  of  those  bores, 
Who  beflead  with  bad  verses  poor  Louis  Quatorze, 
Describes,  (the  first  verse  somehow  ends  with  victoire,) 
As  dispersant  parlout  et  ses  merribres  et  sa  gloire ; 
Or,  if  I  were  over-desirous  of  earning 
A  repute  among  noodles  for  classical  learning, 
I  could  pick  you  a  score  of  allusions,  I  wis, 
As  new  as  the  jests  of  Didaskalos  tis  ; 


A   FABLE    FOR    THE    CRITICS. 

Better  still,  I  could  make  out  a  good  solid  list 

From  recondite  authors  who  do  not  exist, — 

But  that  would  be  naughty :  at  least,  I  could-  twist 

Something  out  of  Absyrtus,  or  turn  your  inquiries 

After  Milton's  prose  metaphor,  drawn  from  Osiris ; — • 

But,  as  Cicero  says  he  won't  say  this  or  that, 

(A  fetch,  I  must  say,  most  transparent  and  flat,) 

After  saying  whate'er  he  could  possibly  think  of, — 

I  simply  will  state  that  I  pause  on  the  brink  of 

A  mire,  ankle-deep,  of  deliberate  confusion, 

Made  up  of  old  jumbles  of  classic  allusion, 

So,  when  you  were  thinking  yourselves  to  be  pitied, 

Just  conceive  how  much  harder  your  teeth  you'd  have  gritted, 

An  'twere  not  for  the  dulness  I've  kindly  omitted. 

Td  apologize  here  for  my  many  digressions, 
Were  it  not  that  I'm  certain  to  trip  in,to  fresh  ones, 
('Tis  so  hard  to  escape  if  you  get  in  their  mesh  once ;) 
Just  reflect,  if  you  please,  how  'tis  said  by  Horatius, 
That  MsBonides  nods  now  and  then,  and,  my  gracious ! 
It  certainly  does  look  a  little  bit  ominous 
When  he  gets  under  way  with  ton  d'apameibomenos. 
(Here  a  something  occurs  which  I'll  just  clap  a  rhyme  to, 
And  say  it  myself,  ere  a  Zoilus  has  time  to, — 
Any  author  a  nap  like  Van  Winkle's  may  take, 
If  he  only  contrive  to  keep  readers  awake, 


22  A    FABLE    FOR    THE    CRITICS. 

But  he'll  very  soon  find  himself  laid  on  the  shelf, 
If  they  fall  a  nodding  when  he  nods  himself.) 

Once  for  all,  to  return,  and  to  stay,  will  I,  nill  I — 
When  Phoebus  expressed  his  desire  for  a  lily. 
Our  hero,  whose  homoeopathic  sagacity 
With  an  ocean  of  zeal  mixed  his  drop  of  capacity, 
Set  off  for  the  garden  as  fast  as  the  wind, 
(Or,  to  take  a  comparison  more  to  my  mind, 
As  a  sound  politician  leaves  conscience  behind,) 
And  leaped  the  low  fence,  as  a  party  hack  jumps 
O'er  his  principles,  when  something  else  turns  up  trumps* 

He  was  gone  a  long  time,  and  Apollo  meanwhile, 
Went  over  some  sonnets  of  his  with  a  file, 
For  of  all  compositions,  he  thought  that  the  sonnet 
Best  repaid  all  the  toil  you  expended  upon  it  ; 
It  should  reach  with  one  impulse  the  end  of  its  course, 
And  for  one  final  blow  collect  all  of  its  force ; 
Not  a  verse  should  be  salient,  but  each  one  should  tend 
With  a  wave-like  up-gathering  to  burst  at  the  end ; — 
So,  condensing  the  strength  here,  there  smoothing  a  wry  kink, 

He  was  killing  the  time,  when  up  walked  Mr. ; 

At  a  few  steps  behind  him,  a  small  man  in  glasses, 
Went  dodging  about,  muttering  "  murderers  !  asses  !" 
From  out  of  his  pocket  a  paper  he'd  take, 


A    FABLE    FOR    THE    CRITICS.  23 

With  the  proud  look  of  martyrdom  tied  to  its  staKe, 

And,  reading  a  squib  at  himself,  he'd  say,  "  Here  I  see 

'Gainst  American  letters  a  bloody  conspiracy, 

They  are  all  by  my  personal  enemies  written  ; 

I  must  post  an  anonymous  letter  to  Britain, 

And  show  that  this  gall  is  the  merest  suggestion 

Of  spite  at  my  zeal  on  the  Copyright  question, 

For,  on  this  side  the  water,  'tis  prudent  to  pull 

O'er  the  eyes  of  the  public  their  national  wool, 

By  accusing  of  slavish  respect  to  John  Bull, 

All  American  authors  who  have  more  or  less 

Of  that  anti- American  humbug — success, 

While  in  private  we're  always  embracing  the  knees 

Of  some  twopenny  editor  over  the  seas, 

And  licking  his  critical  shoes,  for  you  know  'tis 

The  whole  aim  of  our  lives  to  get  one  English  'notice' ; 

My  American  puffs  I  would  willingly  burn  all, 

(They're  all  from  one  source,  monthly,  weekly,  diurnal,) 

To  get  but  a  kick  from  a  transmarine  journal !" 

So,  culling  the  gibes  of  each  critical  scorner 
As  if  they  were  plums,  and  himself  were  Jack  Horner, 
He  came  cautiously  on,  peeping  round  every  corner, 
And  into  each  hole  where  a  weasel  might  pass  in, 
Expecting  the  knife  of  some  critic  assassin, 
Who  stabs  to  the  heart  with  a  caricature, 


24  A   FABLE    FOR   THE    CRITICS. 

Not  so  bad  as  those  daubs  of  the  Sun,  to  be  sure 
Yet  done  with  a  dagger-6-type,  whose  vile  portraits 
Disperse  all  one's  good,  and  condense  all  one's  poor  traits.  ' 

Apollo  looked  up,  hearing  footsteps  approaching, 
And  slipped  out  'of  sight  the  new  rhymes  he  was  broaching,— 

"  Good  day,  Mr. ,  I'm  happy  to  meet 

With  a  scholar  so  ripe,  and  a  critic  so  neat, 
Who  through  Grub-street  the  soul  of  a  gentleman  carries, — 
What  news  from  that  suburb  of  London  and  Paris 
Which  latterly  makes  such  shrill  claims  to  monopolize 
The  credit  of  being  the  New  World's  metropolis  ?" 

"Why,  nothing  of  consequence,  save  this  attack 
On  my  friend  there,  behind,  by  some  pitiful  hack, 
Who  thinks  every  national  author  a  poor  one, 
That  isn't  a  copy  of  something  that's  foreign, 
And  assaults  the  American  Dick — " 

"  Nay,  'tis  clear 

'That  your  Damon  there  's  fond  of  a  flea  in  his  ear, 
And,  if  no  one  else  furnished  them  gratis,  on  tick 
He  would  buy  some  himself,  just  to  hear  tb^  old  click  ; 
Why,  I  honestly  think,  if  some  fool  in  Japa% 
Should  turn  up  his  nose  at  the  '  Poems  on  Man,' 
Your  friend  there  by  some  inward  instinct  would  know  it, 
Would  get  it  translated,  reprinted,  and  show  it ; 


A   FABLE   FOR   THE   CRITICS.  25 

As  a  man  might  take  off  a  high  stock  to  exhibit 
The  autograph  round  his  own  neck  of  the  gibbet ; 
Nor  would  let  it  rest  so,  but  fire  column  after  column, 
Signed  Cato,  or  Brutus,  or  something  as  solemn, 
By  way  of  displaying  his  critical  crosses, 
And  tweaking  that  poor  transatlantic  proboscis, 
His  broadsides  resulting  (and  this  there's  no  doubt  of,) 
In  successively  sinking  the  craft  they're  fired  out  of. 
Now  nobody  knows  when  an  author  is  hit, 
If  he  don't  have  a  public  hysterical  fit ; 
Let  him  only  keep  close  in  his  snug  garret's  dim  ether, 
And  nobody'd  think  of  his  critics — or  him  either  ; 
If  an  author  have  any  least  fibre  of  worth  in  him, 
Abuse  would  but  tickle  the  organ  of  mirth  in  him, 
All  the  critics  on  earth  cannot  crush  with  their  ban, 
One  word  that's  in  tune  with  the  nature  of  man." 

"  Well,  perhaps  so ;  meanwhile  I  have  brought  you  a  book, 
Into  which  if  you'll  just  have  the  goodness  to  look, 
You  may  feel  so  delighted,  when  you  have  got  through  it, 
As  to  think  it  not  unworth  your  while  to  review  it, 
And  I  think  I  can  promise  your  thoughts,  if  you  do, 
A  place  in  the  nextj Democratic  Review." 

"  The  most  thankless  of  gods  you  must  surely  have  tho't  me, 
For  this  is  the  forty-fourth  copy  you've  brought  me, 


26  4    FABLE    FOR   THE   CRITICS. 

I  have  given  them  away,  or  at  least  I  have  tried, 

But  I've  forty-two  left,  standing  all  side  by  side, 

(The  man  who  accepted  that  one  copy,  died;) — 

From  one  end  of  a  shelf  to  the  other  they  reach, 

'  With  the  author's  respects'  neatly  written  in  each. 

The  publisher,  sure,  will  proclaim  a  Te  Deum, 

When  he  hears  of  that  order  the  British  Museum 

Has  sent  for  one  set  of  what  books  were  first  printed 

In  America,  little  or  big, — for  'tis  hinted 

That  this  is  the  first  truly  tangible  hope  he 

Has  ever  had  raised  for  the  sale  of  a  copy. 

I've  thought  very  often  'twould  be  a  good  thing 

In  all  public  collections  of  books,  if  a  wing 

Were  set  off  by  itself,  like  the  seas  from  the  dry  lands, 

Marked  Literature  suited  to  desolate  islands, 

And  filled  with  such  books  as  could  never  be  read 

Save  by  readers  of  proofs,  forced  to  do  it  for  bread, — 

Such  books  as  one's  wrecked  on  in  small  country-taverns, 

Such  as  hermits  might  mortify  over  in  caverns, 

Such  as  Satan,  if  printing  had  then  been  invented, 

As  the  climax  of  woe,  would  to  Job  have  presented, 

Such  as  Crusoe  might  dip  in,  although  there  are  few  so 

Outrageously  cornered  by  fate  as  poor  Crusoe  ; 

And  since  the  philanthropists  just  now  are  banging 

And  gibbeting  all  who're  in  favor  of  hanging, — 

(Though  Cheever  has  proved  that  the  Bible  and  Altar 


A    FABLE    FOR    THE    CRITICS.  27 

Were  let  down  from  Heaven  at  the  end  of  a  halter, 

\nd  that  vital  religion  would  dull  and  grow  callous, 

Jnre freshed,  now  and  then,  with  a  sniff  of  the  gallows,) — 

\nd  folks  are  beginning  to  think  it  looks  odd, 

To  choke  a  poor  scamp  for  the  glory  of  God  ; 

\nd  that  He  who  esteems  the  Virginia  reel 

\.  bait  to  draw  saints  from  their  spiritual  weal, 

d  regards  the  quadrille  as  a  far  greater  knavery 
Than  crushing  His  African  children  with  slavery, — 
Since  all  who  take  part  in  a  waltz  or  cotillion 
A.re  mounted  for  hell  on  the  Devil's  own  pillion, 
Who,  as  every  true  orthodox  Christian  well  knows, 
Approaches  the  heart  through  the  door  of  the  toes, — 
That  He,  I  was  saying,  whose  judgments  are  stored 
For  such  as  take  steps  in  despite  of  his  word, 
Should  look  with  delight  on  the  agonized  prancing 
Of  a  wretch  who  has  not  the  least  ground  for  his  dancing, 
While  the  State,  standing  by,  sings  a  verse  from  the  Psalter 
About  offering  to  God  on  his  favorite  halter, 
And,  when  the  legs  droop  from  their  twitching  divergence, 
Sells  the  clothes  to  a  Jew,  ancl  the  corpse  to  the  surgeons ; — 

Now,  instead  of  all  this,  I  think  I  can  direct  you  all 
To  a  criminal  code  both  humane  and  effectual ; — 
I  propose  to  shut  up  every  doer  of  wrong 
With  these  desperate  books,  for  such  term,  short  or  long, 


A_B£BLE    FOR    THE    CRITICS. 

'  '' 


28 

As  by  stakule  in  such  cases  made  and  provided, 
Shall  be  by  your  wise  legislators  decided 
Thus  :  —  Let  murderers  be  shut,  to  grow  wiser  and  cooler, 
At  hard  labor  for  life  on  the-  works  of  Miss  -  ; 
Petty  thieves,  kept  from  flagranter  crimes  by  their  fears, 
Shall  peruse  Yankee  Doodle  a  blank  term  of  years,  — 
That  American  Punch,  like  the  English,  no  doubt  — 
Just  the  sugar  and  lemons  and  spirit  left  out. 

"  But  stay,  here  comes  Tityrus  Griswold,  and  leads  on 
The  flocks  whom  he  first  plucks  alive,  and  then  feeds  on,  — 
A  loud  cackling  swarm,  in  whose  feathers  warm-drest, 
He  goes  for  as  perfect  a  —  swan,  as  the  rest. 

"  There  comes  Emerson  first,  whose  rich  words,  every  one, 
Are  like  gold  nails  in  temples  to  hang  trophies  on, 
Whose  prose  is  grand  verse,  while  his  verse,  the  Lord  knows, 
Is  some  of  it  pr  -  No,  'tis  not  even  prose  ; 
I'm  speaking  of  metres  ;  some  poems  have  welled 
From  those  rare  depths  of  soul  that  have  ne'er  been  excelled 
They're  not  epics,  but  that  doesn't  matter  a  pin, 
In  creating,  the  only  hard  thing's  to  begin  ; 
A  grass-blade  's  no  easier  to  make  than  an  oak, 
If  you've  once  found  the  way,  you've  achieved  the  grand  stroke 

•MMM* 

In  the  worst  of  his  poems  are  mines  of  rich  matter, 
But  thrown  in  a  heap  with  a  crush  and  a  clatter  ; 


A    FABLE    FOR    THE    CK^K^. 


Now  it  is  not  one  thing  nor  another  alone 
Makes  a  poem,  but  rather  the  general  tone, 
The  something  pervading,  uniting  the  whole, 
The  before  unconceived,  unconceivable  soul, 
So^ that  just  in  removing  this  trifle  or  that,  you 
Take  away,  as  it  were,  a  chief  limb  of  the  statue ; 
Roots,  wood,  bark,  and  leaves,  singly  perfect  may  be, 
But,  clapt  hodge-podge  together,  they  don't  make  a  tree. 

"  But,  to  come  back  to  Emerson,  (whom  by  the  way, 
I  believe  we  left  waiting,) — his  is,  we  may  say, 
A  Greek  head  on  right  Yankee  shoulders,  whose  range 
Has  Olympus  for  one  pole,  for  t'other  the  Exchange ; 
He  seems,  to  my  thinking,  (although  I'm  afraid 
The  comparison  must,  long  ere  this,  have  been  made,) 
A  Plotinus-Montaigne,  where  the  Egyptian's  gold  mist 
And  the  Gascon's  shrewd  wit  cheek-by-jowl  co-exist; 
All  admire,  and  yet  scarcely  six  converts  he's  got 
To  I  don't  (nor  they  either)  exactly  know  what ; 
For  though  he  builds  glorious  temples,  'tis,  odd 
He  leaves  never  a  doorway  to  get  in  a  god. 
JTis  refreshing  to  old-fashioned  people  like  me, 
To  meet  such  a  primitive  Pagan  as  he, 
In  whose  mind  all  creation  is  duly  respected 
As  parts  of  himself — just  a  little  projected ; 
And  who's  willing  to  worship  the  stars  and  the  sun, 


30  A    FABLfi    FOR   THE   CRITICS. 

A  convert  to— nothing  but  Emerson, 

So  perfect  a  balance  there  is  in  his  head, 

That  he  talks  of  things  sometimes  as  if  they  were  dead  ; 

Life,  nature,  love,  God,  and  affairs  of  that  sort, 

He  looks  at  as  merely  ideas ;  in  short, 

As  if  they  were  fossils  stuck  round  in  a  cabinet, 

Of  such  vast  extent  that  our  earth's  a  mere  dab  in  it ; 

Composed  just  as  he  is  inclined  to  conjecture  her, 

Namely,  one  part  pure  earth,  ninety-nine  parts  pure  lecturer  \ 

You  are  filled  with  delight  at  his  clear  demonstration, 

Each  figure,  word,  gesture,  just  fits  the  occasion, 

With  the  quiet  precision  of  science  he'll  sort  'em, 

But  you  can't  help  suspecting  the  whole  a  post  mortem. 

w 

"  There  are  persons,  mole-blind  to  the  soul's  make  and  style 
Who  insist  on  a  likeness  'twixt  him  and  Carlyle ; 
To  compare  him  with  Plato  would  be  vastly  fairer, 
Carlyle's  the  more  burly,  but  E.  is  the  rarer; 
He  sees  fewer  objects,  but  clearlier,  truelier, 
If  C.'s  as  original,  E.'s  more  peculiar; 
That  he's  more  of  a  man  you  might  say  of  the  one, 
Of  the  other  he's  more  of  an  Emerson ; 
C.'s  the  Titan,  as  shaggy  of  mind  as  of  limb, — 
E.  the  clear-eyed  Olympian,  rapid  and  slim ; 
The  one's  two-thirds  Norseman,  the  other  half  Greek, 
Where  the  one  's  most  abounding,  the  other  's  to  seek ; 


A   FABLE    FOR    THE    CRITICS.  31 

C.'s  generals  require  to  be  seen  in  the  mass,— 

E.'s  specialties  gain  if  enlarged  by  the  glass; 

C,  gives  nature  and  God  his  own  fits  of  the  blues, 

And  rims  common-sense  things  with  mystical  hues,— 

E.  sits  in  a  mystery  calm  and  intense, 

And  looks  coolly  around  him  with  sharp  common-sense  ; 

C.  shows  you  how  every-day  matters  unite 

With  the  dim  transdiurnal  recesses  of  night,—- 

While  E.,  in  a  plain,  preternatural  way, 

Makes  mysteries  matters  of  mere  every  day  ; 

C.  draws  all  his  characters  quite  a  la  Fuseli, — 

He  don't  sketch  their  bundles  of  muscles  and  thews  illyr 

But  he  paints  with  a  brush  so  untamed  and  profuse, 

They  seem  nothing  but  bundles  of  muscles  and  thews ; 

E.  is  rather  like  Flaxman,  lines  strait  and  severe, 

And  a  colorless  outline,  but  full,  round,  and  clear  ; — . 

To  the  men  he  thinks  worthy  he  frankly  accords 

The  design  of  a  white  marble  statue  in  words. 

C.  labors  to  get  at  the  centre,  and  then 

Take  a  reckoning  from  there  of  his  actions  and  men ; 

E.  calmly  assumes  the  said  centre  as  granted, 

And,  given  himself,  has  whatever  is  wanted. 

p»— 

"  He  has  imitators  in  scores,  who  omit 
No  part  of  the  man  but  his  wisdom  and  wit, — 
Who  go  carefully  o'er  the  sky-blue  of  his  brain, 


A    FABLE    FOR    THE    CRITICS. 

And  when  he  has  skimmed  it  once,  skim  it  again  ; 
If  at  all  they  resemble  him,  you  may  be  sure  it  is 
Because  their  shoals  mirror  his  mists  and  obscurities, 
As  a  mud-puddle  seems  deep  as  heaven  for  a  minute, 
While  a  cloud  that  floats  o'er  is  reflected  within  it. 

"  There  comes ,  for  instance  ;  to  see  him  's  rare,spoi 

Tread  in  Emerson's  tracks  with  legs  painfully  short ; 

How  he  jumps,  how  he  strains,  and  gets  red  in  the  face, 

To  keep  step  with  the  mystagogue's  natural  pace  ! 

He  follows  as  close  as  a  stick  to  a  rocket, 

His  fingers  exploring  the  prophet's  each  pocket. 

Fie,  for  shame,  brother  bard  ;  with  good  fruit  of  your  own, 

Can't  you  let  neighbor  Emerson's  orchards  alone  ? 

Besides,  'tis  no  u$e,  you'll  not  find  e'en  a  core, — 

has  picked  up  all  the  windfalls  before. 

They  might  strip  every  tree,  and  E.  never  would  catch  'em, 
His  Hesperides  have  no  rude  dragon  to  watch  'em  ; 
When  they  send  him  a  dishfull,  and  ask  him  to  try  'em, 
He  never  suspects  how  the  sly  rogues  came  by  'em  ; 
He  wonders  why  'tis  there  are  none  such  his  trees  on, 
And  thinks  'em  the  best  he  has  tasted  this  season. 

"  Yonder,  calm  as  a  cloud,  Alcott  stalks  in  a  dream, 
And  fancies  himself  in  thy  groves,  Academe, 
With  the  Parthenon  nigh,  and  the  olive-trees  o'er  him, 


A    FABLE    FOR    THE    CRITICS.  33 

And  never  a  fact  to  perplex  him  or  bore  him, 

With  a  snug  room  at  Plato's,  when  night  comes,  to  walk  to, 

And  people  from  morning  till  midnight  to  talk  to, 

And  from  midnight  till  morning,  nor  snore  in  their  listening  ; — 

'So  he  muses,  his  face  with  the  joy  of  it  glistening, 
For  his  highest  conceit  of  a  happiest  state  is 
Where  they'd  live  upon  acorns,  and  hear  him  talk  gratis ; 
And  indeed,  I  believe,  no  man  ever  talked  better — 

,  Each  sentence  hangs  perfectly  poised  to  a  letter  ; 
He  seems  piling  words,  but  there's  royal  dust  hid 
In  the  heart  of  each  sky-piercing  pyramid. 
While  he  talks  he  is  grea^  but  goes  out  like  a  taper, 
If  you  shut  him  up  closely  with  pen,  ink,  and  paper  ; 
Yet  his  fingers  itch  for  'em  from  morning  till  night, 
And  he  thinks  he  does  wrong  if  he  don't  always  write  ; 
In  this,  as  in  all  things,  a  lamb  among  men, 
He  goes  to  sure  death  when  he  goes  to  his  pen. 

"  Close  behind  him  is  Brownson,  his  mouth  very  full 
With  attempting  to  gulp  a  Gregorian  bull ; 
Who  contrives,  spite  of  that,  to  pour  out  as  he  goes 
A  stream  of  transparent  and  forcible  prose  ; 
He  shifts  quite  about,  then  proceeds  to  expound 
That  'tis  merely  the  earth,  not  himself,  that  turns  round, 
And  wishes  it  clearly  impressed  on  your  mind, 

That  the  weather-cock  rules  and  not  follows  the  wind  ; 

3 


34  A    FABLE    FOR    THE    CRITICS. 

Proving  first,  then  as  deftly  confuting  each  side, 

With  no  doctrine  pleased  that's  not  somewhere  denied, 

He  lays  the  denier  away  on  the  shelf, 

And  then — -down  beside  him  lies  gravely  himself. 

He's  the  Salt  River  boatman,  who  always  stands  willing 

To  convey  friend  or  foe  without  charging  a  shilling, 

And  so  fond  of  the  trip  that,  when  leisure's  to  spare. 

He'll  row  himself  up,  if  he  can't  get  a  fare. 

The  worst  of  it  is,  that  his  logic  's  so  strong, 

That  of  two  sides  he  commonly  chooses  the  wrong  ; 

If  there  is  only  one,  why,  he'll  split  it  in  two, 

And  first  pummel  this  half,  then  that,  black  and  blue. 

That  white's  white  needs  no  proof,  but  it  takes  a  deep  fellow 

To  prove  it  jet-black,  and  that  jet-black  is  yellow. 

He  offers  the  true  faith  to  drink  in  a  sieve, — 

When  it  reaches  your  lips  there's  naught  left  to  believe 

But  a  few  silly-  (syllo-,  I  mean,)  -gisms  that  squat  'em 

Like  tadpoles,  o'erjoyed  with  the  mud  at  the  bottom. 

"  There  is  Willis,  so  natty  and  jaunty  and  gay, 
Who  says  his  best  things  in  so  foppish  a  way, 
With  conceits  and  pet  phrases  so  thickly  o'erlaying  'em, 
That  one  hardly  knows  whether  to  thank  him  for  saying  'err 
v  Over-ornament  ruins  both  poem  and  prose,) 
Just  conceive  of  a  muse  with  a  ring  in  her  nose ! 
His  prose  had  a  natural  grace  of  its  own, 


A    FABLE    FOR   THE    CRITICS.  35 

And  enough  of  it,  too,  if  he'd  let  it  alone  ; 

But  he  twitches  and  jerks  so,  one  fairly  gets  tired, 

And  is  forced  to  forgive  where  he  might  have  admired  j 

Yet  whenever  it  slips  away  free  and  unlaced, 

It  runs  like  a  stream  with  a  musical  waste, 

And  gurgles  along  with  the  liquidest  sweep ; — 

'Tis  not  deep  as  a  river,  but  who'd  have  it  deep  ? 

In  a  country  where  scarcely  a  village  is  found 

That  has  not  its  author  sublime  and  profound, 

For  some  one  to  be  slightly  shoal  is  a  duty, 

And  Willis's  shallowness  makes  half  his  beauty. 

His  prose  winds  along  with  a  blithe,  gurgling  error, 

And  reflects  all  of  Heaven  it  can  see  in  its  mirror. 

JTis  a  narrowish  strip,  but  it  is  not  an  artifice, — 

JTis  the  true  out-of-doors  with  its  genuine  hearty  phiz ; 

It  is  Nature  herself,  and  there's  something  in  that, 

Since  most  brains  reflect  but  the  crown  of  a  hat. 

No  volume  I  know  to  read  under  a  tree, 

More  truly  delicious  than  his  A  1'  Abri, 

With  the  shadows  of  leaves  flowing  over  your  book, 

Like  ripple-shades  netting  the  bed  of  a  brook ; 

With  June  coming  softly  your  shoulder  to  look  over, 

Breezes  waiting  to  turn  every  leaf  of  your  book  over, 

And  Nature  to  criticise  still  as  you  read,- — 

The  page  that  bears  that  is  a  rare  one  indeed. 


36  A    FABLE    FOR   THE    CRITICS. 

"  He's  so  innate  a  cockney,  that  had  he  been  born 
Where  plain  bare-skin's  the  only  full-dress  that  is  worn, 
He'd  have  given  his  own  such  an  air  that  you'd  say 
'T  had  been  made  by  a  tailor  to  lounge  in  Broadway. 
His  nature's  a  glass  of  champagne  with  the  foam  on't, 
As  tender  as  Fletcher,  as  witty  as  Beaumont ; 
So  his  best  things  are  done  in  the  flush  of  the  moment, 
If  he  wait,  all  is  spoiled ;  he  may  stir  it  and  shake  it, 
But,  the  fixed  air  once  gone,  he  can  never  re-make  it. 
He  might  be  a  marvel  of  easy  delightfulness, 
If  he  would  not  sometimes  leave  the  r  out  of  sprightfulness ; 
And  he  ought  to  let  Scripture  alone — 'tis  self-slaughter, 
For  nobody  likes  inspiration-and-water. 
He'd  have  been  just  the  fellow  to  sup  at  the  Mermaid, 
Cracking  jokes  at  rare  Ben,  with  an  eye  to  the  bar-maid, 
His  wit  running  up  as  Canary  ran  down, — 
The  topmost  bright  bubble  on  the  wave  of  The  Town. 

"  Here  comes  Parker,  the  Orson  of  parsons,  a  man 
Whom  the  Church  undertook  to  put  under  her  ban, — 
(The  Church  of  Socinus,  I  mean) — his  opinions 
Being  So-  (ultra)  -cinian,  they  shocked  the  Socinians ; 
They  believed — faith  I'm  puzzled — I  think  I  may  call 
Their  belief  a  believing  in  nothing  at  all, 
Or  something  of  that  sort  •  I  know  they  all  went 
For  a  general  union  of  total  dissent : 


A   FABLE    FOR   THE    CRITICS.  37 

He  went  a  step  farther ;  without  cough  or  hem, 

He  frankly  avowed  he  believed  not  in  them ; 

And,  before  he  could  be  jumbled  up  or  prevented, 

From  their  orthodox  kind  of  dissent  he  dissented. 

There  was  heresy  here,  you  perceive,  for  the  right 

Of  privately  judging  means  simply  that  light 

Has.  been,  granted  to  me,  for  deciding  on  you, 

And,  in  happier  times,  before  Atheism  grew, 

The  deed  contained  clauses  for  cooking  you,  too. 

Now  at  Xerxes  and  Knut  we  all  laugh,  yet  our  foot 

With  the  same  wave  is  wet  that  mocked  Xerxes  and  Knut ; 

And  we  all  entertain  a  sincere  private  notion, 

That  our  Thus  far  !  will  have  a  great  weight  with  the  ocean. 

'Twas  so  with  our  liberal  Christians  :  they  bore 

With  sincerest  conviction  their  chairs  to  the  shore ; 

They  brandished  their  worn  theological  birches, 

Bade  natural  progress  keep  out  of  the  Churches, 

And  expected  the  lines  they  had  drawn  to  prevail 

With  the  fast-rising  tide  to  keep  out  of  their  pale ; 

They  had  formerly  dammed  the  Pontifical  See, 

And  the  same  thing,  they  thought,  would  do  nicely  for  P. ; 

But  he  turned  up  his  nose  at  their  murmuring  and  shamming, 

And  cared  (shall  I  say  ?)  not  a  d —  for  their  damming ; 

So  they  first  read  him  out  of  their  Church,  and  next  minute 

Turned  round  and  declared  he  had  never  been  in  it. 

But  the  ban  was  too  small  or  the  man  was  too  big, 


33  A   FABLE    FOR   THE    CRITICS. 

For  he  recks  not  their  bells,  books,  and  candles  a  fig ; 

(He  don't  look  like  a  man  who  would  stay  treated  shabbily, 

Sophroniscus'  son's  head  o'er  the  features  of  Rabelais ;) — 

He  bangs  and  bethwacks  them, — their  backs  he  salutes 

With  the  whole  tree  of  knowledge  torn  up  by  the  roots  ; 

His  sermons  with  satire  are  plenteously  verjuiced, 

And  he  talks  in  one  breath  of  Confutzee,  Cass,  Zerduscht, 

Jack  Robinson,  Peter  the  Hermit,  Strap,  Dathan, 

Gush,  Pitt  (not  the  bottomless,  that  he's  no  faith  in,) 

Pan,  Pillicock,  Shakspeare,  Paul,  Toots,  Monsieur  Tonson, 

Aldebaran,  Alcander,  Ben  Khorat,  Ben  Jonson, 

Thoth,  Richter,  Joe  Smith,  Father  Paul,  Judah  Monis, 

Musseus,  Muretus,  hem, — p  Scorpionis, 

Maccabee,  Maccaboy,  Mac — Mac — ah !  Machiavelli, 

Condorcet,  Count  d'Orsay,  Conder,  Say,  Ganganelli, 

Orion,  O'Connell,  the  Chevalier  D'O, 

(Whom  the  great  Sully  speaks  of,)  TO  nav,  the  great  toe 

Of  the  statue  of  Jupiter,  now  made  to  pass 

For  that  of  Jew  Peter  by  good  Romish  brass, — 

(You  may  add  for  yourselves,  for  I  find  it  a  bore, 

All  the  names  you  have  ever,  or  not,  heard  before, 

And  when  you've  done  that — why,  invent  a  few  more.) 

His  hearers  can't  tell  you  on  Sunday  beforehand, 

If  in  that  day's  discourse  they'll  be  Bibled  or  Koraned, 

For  he's  seized  the  idea  (by  his  martyrdom  fired,) 

That  all  men  (not  orthodox)  may  le  inspired ; 


A   FABLE   FOR   THE   CRITICS.  39 

Yet,  though  wisdom  profane  with  his  creed  he  may  weave  in, 

He  makes  it  quite  clear  what  he  doesn't  believe  in, 

While  some,  who  decry  him,  think  all  Kingdom  Come 

Is  a  sort  of  a,  kind  of  a,  species  of  Hum, 

Of  which,  as  it  were,  so  to  speak,  not  a  crumb 

Would  be  left,  if  we  did'nt  keep  carefully  mum, 

And,  to  make  a  clean  breast,  that  'tis  perfectly  plain 

That  all  kinds  of  wisdom  are  somewhat  profane  ; 

Now  P.'s  creed  than  this  may  be  lighter  or  darker, 

But  in  one  thing,  'tis  clear,  he  has  faith,  namely — Parker  ;  * 

And  this  is  what  makes  him  the  crowd-drawing  preacher, 

There's  a  back-ground  of  god  to  each  hard-working  feature, 

Every  word  that  he  speaks  has  been  fierily  furnaced 

In  the  blast  of  a  life  that  has  struggled  in  earnest : 

There  he  stands,  looking  more  like  a  ploughman  than  priest, 

If  not  dreadfully  awkward,  not  graceful  at  least, 

His  gestures  all  downright  and  same,  if  you  will, 

As  of  brown-fisted  Hobnail  in  hoeing  a  drill, 

But  his  periods  fall  on  you,  stroke  after  stroke, 

Like  the  blows  of  a  lumberer  felling  an  oak, 

You  forget  the  man  wholly,  you're  thankful  to  meet 

With  a  preacher  who  smacks  of  the  field  and  the  street, 

And  to  hear,  you're  not  over-particular  whence, 

Almost  Taylor's  profusion,  quite  Latimer's  sense. 

"  There  is  Bryant,  as  quiet,  as  cool,  and  as  dignified, 


40  A    FABLE    FOR    THE    CRITICS. 

As  a  smooth,  silent  iceberg,  that  never  is  ignified, 

Save  when  by  reflection  'tis  kindled  o'  nights 

With  a  semblance  of  flame  by  the  chill  Northern  Lights. 

He  may  rank  (Griswold  says  so)  first  bard  of  your  nation, 

(There's  no  doubt  that  he  stands  ?n  supreme  ice-olation,) 

Your  topmost  Parnassus  he  may  set  his  heel  on, 

But  no  warm  applauses  come,  peal  following  peal  on, — 

He's  too  smooth  and  too  polished  to  hang  any  zeal  on : 

Unqualified  merits,  I'll  grant,  if  you  choose,  he  has  'em, 

But  he  lacks  the  one  merit  of  kindling  enthusiasm ; 

If  he  stir  you  at  all,  it  is  just,  on  my  soul, 

Like  being  stirred  up  with  the  very  North  Pole. 

"  He  is  very  nice  reading  in  summer,  but  inter 
Nos,  we  don't  want  extra  freezing  in  winter  j 
Take  him  up  in  the  depth  of  July,  my  advice  is, 
'When  you  feel  an  Egyptian  devotion  to  ices. 
But,  deduct  all  you  can,  there's  enough  that's  right  good  in  him, 
He  has  a  true  soul  for  field,  river,  and  wood  in  him ; 
And  his  heart,  in  the  midst  of  brick  walls,  or  where'er  it  is, 
Glows,  softens,  and  thrills  with  the  tenderest  charities, — 
To  you  mortals  that  delve  in  this  trade-ridden  planet  1 
No,  to  old  Berkshire's  hills,  with  their  limestone  and  granite. 
If  you'r  one  who  in  loco  (add  foco  here)  desipis, 
You  will  get  of  his  outermost  heart  (as  I  guess)  a  piece ; 
But  you'd  get  deeper  down  if  you  came  as  a  precipice, 


A   FABLE   FOR   THE   CRITICS.  41 

And  would  break  the  last  seal  of  its  inwardest  fountain 

If  you  only  could  palm  yourself  off  for  a  mountain. 

Mr.  Quivis,  or  somebody  quite  as  discerning, 

Some  scholar  who's  hourly  expecting  his  learning, 

Calls  B.  the  American  Wordsworth ;  but  Wordsworth 

Is  worth  near  as  much  as  your  whole  tuneful  herd's  worth. 

No,  don't  be  absurd,  he's  an  excellent  Bryant ; 

But,  my  friends,  you'll  endanger  the  life  of  your  client, 

By  attempting  to  stretch  him  up  mto  a  giant : 

If  you  choose  to  compare  him,  I  think  there  are  two  per- 

-sons  fit  for  a  parallel — Thomson  and  Cowper  ;* 

I  don't  mean  exactly, — there's  something  of  each, 

There's  T.'s  love  of  nature,  C.'s  penchant  to  preach ; 

Just  mix  up  their  minds  so  that  C.'s  spice  of  craziness 

Shall  balance  and  neutralize  T.'s  turn  for  laziness, 

And  it  gives  you  a  brain  cool,  quite  frictionless,  quiet, 

Whose  internal  police  nips  the  buds  of  all  riot, — 

A  brain  like  a  permanent  strait-jacket  put  on 

The  heart  which  strives  vainly  to  burst  off  a  button, — 

A  brain  which,  without  being  slow  or  mechanic, 

Does  more  than  a  larger  less  drilled,  more  volcanic ; 

He's  a  Cowper  condensed,  with  no  craziness  bitten, 

And  the  advantage  that  Wordsworth  before  him  has  written. 

*  To  demonstrate  quickly  and  easily  how  per- 
-versely  absurd  'tis  to  sound  this  name  Cowper, 
As  people  in  general  call  him  named  super, 


42  A   FABLE    FOR   THE   CRITICS. 

"  But,  my  dear  little  bardlings,  don't  prick  up  your  ears, 
Nor  suppose  I  would  rank  you  and  Bryant  as  peers ; 
If  I  call  him  an  iceberg,  I  don't  mean  to  say 
There  is  nothing  in  that  which  is  grand,  in  its  way  ; 
He  is  almost  the  one  of  your  poets  that  knows 
How  much  grace,  strength,  and  dignity  lie  in  Repose  ; 
If  he  sometimes  fall  short,  he  is  too  wise  to  mar 
His  thought's  modest  fulness  by  going  too  far ; 
'Twould  be  well  if  your  authors  should  all  make  a  trial 
Of  what  virtue  there  is  in  severe  self-denial, 
And  measure  their  writings  by  Hesiod's  staff, 
Which  teaches  that  all  has  less  value  than  half. 

"  There  is  Whittier,  whose  swelling  and  vehement  heart 
Strains  the  strait-breasted  drab  of  the  Quaker  apart, 
And  reveals  the  live  Man,  still  supreme  and  erect 
Underneath  the  bemummying  wrappers  of  sect ; 
There  was  ne'er  a  man  born  who  had  more  of  the  swino- 

O 

Of  the  true  lyric  bard  and  all  that  kind  of  thing ; 

And  his  failures  arise,  (though  perhaps  he  don't  know  it,) 

From  the  very  same  cause  that  has  made  him  a  poet, — 

A  fervor  of  mind  which  knows  no  separation 

'Twixt  simple  excitement  and  pure  inspiration, 

As  my  Pythoness  erst  sometimes  erred  from  not  knowing 

If  'twere  I  or  mere  wind  through  her  tripod  was  blowing  j 

Let  his  mind  once  get  head  in  its  favorite  direction 


A    FABLE    FOR   THE    CRITICS.  43 

And  the  torrent  of  verse  bursts  the  dams  of  reflection, 

While,  borne  with  the  rush  of  the  metre  along, 

The  poet  may  chance  to  go  right  or  go  wrong, 

Content  with  the  whirl  and  delirium  of  song  ; 

Then  his  grammar  's  not  always  correct,  nor  his  rhymes, 

And  he's  prone  to  repeat  his  own  lyrics  sometimes, 

Not  his  best,  though,  for  those  are  struck  off  at  white -heats 

When  the  heart  in  his  breast  like  a  trip-hammer  beats, 

And  can  ne'er  be  repeated  again  any  more 

Than  they  could  have  been  carefully  plotted  before  : 

Like  old  what's-his-name  there  at  the  battle  of  Hastings, 

(Who,  however,  gave  more  than  mere  rhythmical  bastings,) 

Our  Quaker  leads  off  metaphorical  fights 

For  reform  and  whatever  they  call  human  rights, 

Botn  singing  and  striking  in  front  of  the  war 

And  hitting  his  foes  with  the  mallet  of  Thor ; 

Anne  haeci  one  exclaims,  on  beholding  his  knocks, 

Vestis  flu  tui,  O,  leather-clad  Fox  ? 

Can  that  be  thy  son,  invthe  battle's  mid  din, 

Preaching  brotherly  love  and  then  driving  it  in 

To  the  brain  of  the  tough  old  Goliath  of  sin, 

With  the  smoothest  of  pebbles  from  Castaly's  spring 

Impressed  on  his  hard  moral  sense  with  a  sling  1 

"  All  honor  and  praise  to  the  right-hearted  bard 
Who  was  true  to  The  Voice  when  such  service  was  hard, 


44  ;.  &  & 


ABLE    FOR    THE    CRITICS. 

Who  himself  was  so  free  he  dared  sing  for  the  slave 

When  to  look  but  a  protest  in  silence  was  brave  ; 

All  honor  and  praise  to  the  women  and  men 

Who  spoke  out  for  the  dumb  and  the  drown-trodden  then  ! 

I  need  not  to  name  them,  already  for  each 

I  see  History  preparing  the  statue  and  niche ; 

They  were  harsh,  but  shall  you  be  so  shocked  at  hard  words 

Who  have  beaten  your  pruning-hooks  up  into  swords, 

Whose  rewards  and  hurrahs  men  are  surer  to  gain 

By  the  reaping  of  men  and  of  women  than  grain  ? 

Why  should  you  stand  aghast  at  their  fierce  wordy  war,  if 

You  scalp  one  another  for  Bank  or  for  Tariff? 

Your  calling  them  cut-throats  and  knaves  all  day  long 

Don't  prove  that  the  use  of  hard  language  is  wrong ; 

While  the  World's  heart  beats  quicker  to  think  of  such  men 

As  signed  Tyranny's  doom  with  a  bloody  steel-pen, 

While  on  Fourth-of-Julys  beardless  orators  fright  one 

With  hints  at  Harmodius  and  Aristogeiton, 

You  need  not  look  shy  at  your  sisters  and  brothers 

Who  stab  with  sharp  words  for  the  freedom  of  others ; — 

No,  a  wreath,  twine  a  wreath  for  the  loyal  and  true 

Who,  for  sake  of  the  many,  dared  stand  with  the  few, 

Not  of  blood-spattered  laurel  for  enemies  braved, 

But  of  broad,  peaceful  oak-leaves  for  citizens  saved  ! 

"  Here  comes  Dana,  abstractedly  loitering  along. 


POK    THE 


Involved  in  a  paulo-post-  future  of  song, 

Who'll  be  going  to  write  what'll  never  be  written 

Till  the  Muse,  ere  he  thinks  of  it,  gives  him  the  mitten,  — 

Who  is  so  well  aware  of  how  things  should  be  done, 

That  his  own  works  displease  him  before  they're  begun,  — 

Who  so  well  all  that  makes  up  good  poetry  knows, 

That  the  best  of  his  poems  is  written  in  prose  ; 

All  saddled  and  bridled  stood  Pegasus  waiting, 

He  was  booted  and  spurred,  but  he  loitered  debating, 

In  a  very  grave  question  his  soul  was  immersed,  — 

Which  foot  in  the  stirrup  he  ought  to  put  first  ; 

And,  while  this  point  and  that  he  judicially  dwelt  on, 

He,  somehow  or  other,  had  written  Paul  Felton, 

Whose  beauties  or  faults,  whichsoever  you  see  there, 

You'll  allow  only  genius  could  hit  upon  either. 

That  he  once  was  the  Idle  Man  none  will  deplore, 

But  I  fear  he  will  never  be  any  thing  more  ; 

The  ocean  of  song  heaves  and  glitters  before  him, 

The  depth  arid  the  vastness  and  longing  sweep  o'er  him, 

He  knows  every  breaker  and  shoal  on  the  chart, 

He  has  the  Coast  Pilot  and  so  on  by  heart, 

Yet  he  spends  his  whole  life,  like  the  man  in  the  fable, 

In  learning  to  swim  on  his  library-table. 

"  There  swaggers  John  Neal,  who  has  wasted  in  Maine 
The  sinews  and  chords  of  his  pugilist  brain, 


46  A    FABLE    FOR   THE    CRITICS. 

Who  might  have  been  poet,  but  that,  in  its  stead,  he 

Preferred  to  believe  that  he  was  so  already; 

Too  hasty  to  wait  till  Art's  ripe  fruit  should  drop, 

He  must  pelt  down  an  unripe  and  colicky  crop  ; 

Who  took  to  the  law,  and  had  this  sterling  plea  for  it, 

It  required  him  to  quarrel,  and  paid  him  a  fee  for  it ; 

A  man  who's  made  less  than  he'might  have,  because 

He  always  has  thought  himself  more  than  he  was, — • 

Who,  with  very  good  natural  gifts  as  a  bard, 

Broke  the  strings  of  his  lyre  out  by  striking  too  hard, 

And  cracked  half  the  notes  of  a  truly  fine  voice, 

Because  song  drew  less  instant  attention  than  noise. 

Ah,  men  do  not  know  how  much  strength  is  in  poise, 

That  he  goes  the  farthest  who  goes  far  enough, 

And  that  all  beyond  that  is  just  bother  and  stuff. 

No  vain  man  matures,  he  makes  too  much  new  wood  ; 

His  blooms  are  too  thick  for  the  fruit  to  be  good ; 

'Tis  the  modest  man  ripens,  'tis  he  that  achieves, 

Just  what's  needed  of  sunshine  and  shade  he  receives ; 

Grapes,  to  mellow,  require  the  cool  dark  of  their  leaves ; 

Neal  wants  balance  ;  he  throws  his  mind  always  too  far, 

And  whisks  out  flocks  of  comets,  but  never  a  star ; 

He  has  so  much  muscle,  and  loves  so  to  show  it, 

That  he  strips  himself  naked  to  prove  he's  a  poet, 

And,  to  show  he  could  leap  Art's  wide  ditch,  if  he  tried, 

Jumps  clean  o'er  it,  and  into  the  hedge  t'other  side. 


A    FABLE    FOR    THE    CRITICS.  47 

He  has  strength,  but  there's  nothing  about  him  in  keeping  j 

One  ge-ts  surelier  onward  by  walking  than  leaping ; 

He  has  used  his  own  sinews  himself  to  distress, 

And  had  done  vastly  more  had  he  done  vastly  less ; 

In  letters,  too  soon  is  as  bad  as  too  late, 

Could  he  only  have  waited  he  might  have  been  great, 

But  he  plumped  into  Helicon  up  to  the  waist, 

And  muddied  the  stream  ere  he  took  his  first  taste. 

•» 

"  There  is  Hawthorne,  with  genius  so  shrinking  and  rare 
That  you  hardly  at  first  see  the  strength  that  is  there ; 
A  frame  so  robust,  with  a  nature  so  sweet, 
So  earnest,  so  graceful,  so  solid,  so  fleet, 
Is  worth  a  descent  from  Olympus  to  meet ; 
'Tis  as  if  a  rough  oak  that  for  ages  had  stood, 
With  his  gnarled  bony  branches  like  ribs  of  the  wood, 
Should  bloom,  after  cycles  of  struggle  and  scathe, 
With  a  single  anemone  trembly  and  rathe ; 
His  strength  is  so  tender,  his  wildness  so  meek,, 
That  a  suitable  parallel  sets  one  to  seek, — 
He's  a  John  Bunyan  Fouque,  a  Puritan  Tieck ; 
When  Nature  was  shaping  him,  clay  was  not  granted 
For  making  so  full-sized  a  man  as  she  wanted, 
So,  to  fill  out  her  model,  a  little  she  spared 
From  some  finer-grained  stuff  for  a  woman  prepared, 
And  she  could  not  have  hit  a  more  excellent  plan 


48  A    FABLE    FOR    THE    CRITICS. 

For  making  him  fully  and  perfectly  man. 
The  success  of  her  scheme  gave  her  so  much  delight, 
That  she  tried  it  again,  shortly  after,  in  D  wight ; 
Only,  while  she  was  kneading  and  shaping  the  clay, 
She  sang  to  her  work  in  her  sweet  childish  way, 
\nd  found,  when  she'd  put  the  last  touch  to  his  soul, 
That  the  music  had  somehow  got  mixed  with  the  whole, 

"  Here's  Cooper,  who's  written  six  volumes  to  show 
He's  as  good  as  a  lord :  well,  let's  grant  that  he's  so  j 
If  a  person  prefer  that  description  of  praise, 
Why,  a  coronet's  certainly  cheaper  than  bays ; 
But  he  need  take  no  pains  to  convince  us  he's  not 
(As  his  enemies  say)  the  American  Scott. 
Choose  any  twelve  men,  and  let  C.  read  aloud 
That  one  of  his  novels  of  which  he's  most  proud, 
And  I'd  lay  any  bet  that,  without  ever  quitting 
Their  box,  they'd  be  all,  to  a  man,  for  acquitting. 
He  has  drawn  you  one  character,  though,  that  is  new, 
One  wild  flower  he's  plucked  that  is  wet  with  the  dew 
Of  this  fresh  Western  world,  and,  the  thing  not  to  mince, 
He  has  done  naught  but  copy  it  ill  ever  since ; 
His  Indians,  with  proper  respect  be  it  said, 
Are  just  Natty  Bumpo  daubed  over  with  red, 
And  his  very  Long  Toms  are  the  same  useful  Nat, 
Rigged  up  in  duck  pants  and  a  sou'-wester  hat, 


A    FABLE    FOR    THE    CRITICS. 

(Though,  once  in  a  Coffin,  a  good  chance  was  found 

To  have  slipt  the  old  fellow  away  underground.) 

All  his  other  men-figures  are  clothes  upon  sticks, 

The  dernier  chemise  of  a  man  in  a  fix, 

(As  a  captain  besieged,  when  his  garrison's  small, 

Sets  up  caps  upon  poles  to  be  seen  o'er  the  wall ;) 

And  the  women  he  draws  from  one  model  don't  vary, 

All  sappy  as  maples  and  flat  as  a  prairie. 

When  a  character's  wanted,  he  goes  to  the  task 

As  a  cooper  would  do  in  composing  a  cask ; 

He  picks  out  the  staves,  of  their  qualities  heedful, 

Just  hoops  them  together  as  tight  as  is  needful, 

And,  if  the  best  fortune  should  crown  the  attempt,  he 

Has  made  at  the  most  something  wooden  and  empty. 

"  Don't  suppose  I  would  underrate  Cooper's  abilities, 
If  I  thought  you'd  do  that,  I  should  feel  very  ill  at  ease ; 
The  men  who  have  given  to  one  character  life 
And  objective  existence,  are  not  very  rife, 
You  may  number  them  all,  both  prose-writers  and  singers, 
Without  overrunning  the  bounds  of  your  fingers, 
And  Natty  won't  go  to  oblivion  quicker 
Than  Adams  the  parson  or  Primrose  the  vicar. 

"  There  is  one  thing  in  Cooper  I  like,  too,  and  that  is 
That  on  manners  he  lectures  his  countrymen  gratis ; 


50  A    FABLE    FOR    THE    CRITICS. 

Not  precisely  so  either,  because,  for  a  rarity, 

He  is  paid  for  his  tickets  in  unpopularity. 

Now  he  may  overcharge  his  American  pictures, 

But  you'll  grant  there's  a  good  deal  of  truth  in  his  strictures 

And  I  honor  the  man  who  is  willing  to  sink 

Half  his  present  repute  for  the  freedom  to  think, 

And,  when  he  has  thought,  be  his  cause  strong  or  weak, 

Will  risk  t'other  half  for  the  freedom  to  speak, 

Caring  naught  for  what  vengeance  the  mob  has  in  store, 

Let  that  mob  be  the  upper  ten  thousand  or  lower. 

"  There  are  truths  you  Americans  need  to  be  told, 
And  it  never'll  refute  them  to  swagger  and  scold ; 
John  Bull,  looking  o'er  the  Atlantic,  in  choler 
At  your  aptness  for  trade,  says  you  worship  the  dollar ; 
But  to  scorn  such  i-dollar-try's  what  very  few  do, 
And  John  goes  to  that  church  as  often  as  you  do. 
No  matter  what  John  says,  don't  try  to  outcrow  him, 
'Tis  enough  to  go  quietly  on  and  outgrow  him ; 
Like  most  fathers,  Bull  hates  to  see  Number  One 
Displacing  himself  in  the  mind  of  his  son, 
A.nd  detests  the  same  faults  in  himself  he'd  neglected 
When  he  sees  them  again  in  his  child's  glass  reflected  ; 
To  love  one  another  you're  too  like  by  half, 
If  he  is  a  bull,  you're  a  pretty  stout  calf, 


A   FABLE    FOR   THE    CRITICS.  51 

And  tear  your  own  pasture  for  naught  but  to  show 
What  a  nice  pair  of  horns  you're  beginning  to  grow. 

"  There  are  one  or  two  things  I  should  just  like  to  hint, 
For  you  don't  often  get  the  truth  told  you  in  print ; 
The  most  of  you  (this  is  what  -strikes  all  beholders) 
Have  a  mental  and  physical  stoop  in  the  shoulders ; 
Though  you  ought  to  be  free  as  the  winds  and  the  waves, 
You've  the  gait  and  the  manners  of  runaway  slaves ; 
Tho'  you  brag  of  your  New  World,  you  don't  half  believe  in  it, 
And  as  much  of  the  Old  as  is  possible  weave  in  it ; 
Your  goddess  of  freedom,  a  tight,  buxom  girl, 
With  lips  like  a  cherry  and  teeth  like  a  pearl, 
With  eyes  bold  as  Here's,  and  hair  floating  free, 
And  full  of  the  sun  as  the  spray  of  the  sea, 
Who  can  sing  at  a  husking  or  romp  at  a  shearing, 
Who  can  trip  through  the  forests  alone  without  fearing, 
Who  can  drive  home  the  cows  with  a  song  through  the  grass, 
Keeps  glancing  aside  into  Europe's  cracked  glass, 
Hides  her  red  hands  in  gloves,  pinches  up  her  lithe  waist, 
And  makes  herself  wretched  with  transmarine  taste ; 
She  loses  her  fresh  country  charm  when  she  takes 
Any  mirror  except  her  own  rivers  and  lakes. 

"You  steal  Englishmen's  books  and  think  Englishmen's 
thought, 


52  A    FABLE    FOR    THE    CRITICS. 

With  their  salt  on  her  tail  your  wild  eagle  is  caught ; 

Your  literature  suits  its  each  whisper  and  motion 

To  what  will  be  thought  of  it  over  the  ocean ; 

The  cast  clothes  of  Europe  your  statesmanship  tries 

And  mumbles  again  the  old  blarneys  and  lies  ; — 

Forget  Europe  wholly,  your  veins  throb  with  blood 

To  which  the  dull  current  in  hers  is  but  mud ; 

Let  her  sneer,  let  her  say  your  experiment  fails, 

In  her  voice  there's  a  tremble  e'en  now  while  she  rails, 

And  your  shore  will  soon  be  in  the  nature  of  things 

Covered  thick  with  gilt  driftwood  of  runaway  kings, 

Where  alone,  as  it  were  in  a  Longfellow's  Waif, 

Her  fugitive  pieces  will  find  themselves  safe. 

O,  my  friends,  thank  your  God,  if  you  have  one,  that  he 

'Twixt  the  Old  World  and  you  set  the  gulf  of  a  sea ; 

Be  strong-backed,  brown-handed,  upright  as  your  pines, 

By  the  scale  of  a  hemisphere  shape  your  designs, 

Be  true  to  yourselves  and  this  new  nineteenth  age, 

As  a  statue  by  Powers,  or  a  picture  by  Page, 

Plough,  dig,  sail,  forge,  build,  carve,  paint,  make  all  things 

To  your  own  New- World  instincts  contrive  to  be  true, 

Keep  your  ears  open  wide  to  the  Future's  first  call, 

Be  whatever  you  will,  but  yourselves  first  of  all, 

Stand  fronting  the  dawn  on  Toil's  heaven-scaling  peaks, 

And  become  my  new  race  of  more  practical  Greeks. — 


A    FABLE   FOR   THE    CRITICS.  53 

Hem !  your  likeness  at  present,  I  shudder  to  tell  o't, 

Is  that  you  have  your  slaves,  and  the  Greek  had  his  helot." 

Here  a  gentleman  present,  who  had  in  his  attic 
More  pepper  than  brains,  shrieked — "  The  man  's  a  fanatic, 
T'am  a  capital  tailor  with  warm  tar  and  feathers, 
And  will  make  him  a  suit  that  '11  serve  in  all  weathers ; 
But  we'll  argue  the  point  first,  I'm  willing  to  reason  }t, 
Palaver  before  condemnation  's  but  decent, 
So,  through  my  humble  person,  Humanity  begs 
Of  the  friends  of  true  freedom  a  loan  of  bad  eggs." 
But  Apollo  let  one  such  a  look  of  his  show  forth 
As  when  %ie  VVXTI  SOMU^  and  so  forth, 
And  the  gentleman  somehow  slunk  out  of  the  way, 
But,  as  he  was  going,  gained  courage  to  say, — 
"  At  slavery  in  the  abstract  my  whole  soul  rebels, 
I  am  as  strongly  opposed  to't  as  any  one  else." 
"  Ay,  no  doubt,  but  whenever  I've  happened  to  meet 
With  a  wrong  or  a  crime,  it  is  always  concrete," 
Answered  Phoebus  severely  ;  then  turning  to  us, 
"The  mistakes  of  such  fellows  as  just  made  the  fuss 

Is  only  in  taking  a  great  busy  nation  

For  a  part  of  their  pitiful  cotton-plantation. — 

But  there  comes  Miranda,  Zeus  !  where  shall  I  fiee  to  ? 

She  has  such  a  penchant  for  bothering  me, too  ! 


54  A   FABLE    FOR   THE   CRITICS. 

She  always  keeps  asking  if  I  don't  observe  a 

Particular  likeness  'twixt  her  and  Minerva ; 

She  tells  me  my  efforts  in  verse  are  quite  clever ; — 

She's  been  travelling  now,  and  will  be  worse  than  ever; 

One  would  think,  though,  a  sharp-sighted  noter  she'd  be 

Of  all  that's  worth  mentioning  over  the  sea, 

For  a  woman  must  surely  see  well,  if  she  try, 

The  whole  of  whose  being's  a  capital  I : 

She  will  take  an  old  notion,  and  make  it  her  own, 

By  saying  it  o'er  in  her  Sybilline  tone, 

Or  persuade  you  'tis  something  tremendously  deep, 

By  repeating  it  so  as  to  put  you  to  sleep ; 

And  she  well  may  defy  any  mortal  to  see  through  it, 

When  once  she  has  mixed  up  her  infinite  me  through  it. 

There  is  one  thing  she  owns  in  her  own  single  right, 

It  is  native  and  genuine — namely,  her  spite  : 

Though,  when  acting  as  censor,  she  privately  blows 

A  censor  of  vanity  'neath  her  own  nose." 

Here  Miranda  came  up,  and  said,  "  Phoebus !  you  know 
That  the  infinite  Soul  has  its  infinite  woe, 
As  I  ought  to  know,  having  lived  cheek  by  jowl, 
Since  the  day  I  was  born,  with  the  Infinite  Soul ; 
I  myself  introduced,  I  myself,  I  alone, 
To  my  Land's  better  life  authors  solely  my  own, 
Who  the  sad  heart  of  earth  on  their  shoulders  have  taken, 


A    FABLE    FOR   THE    CRITICS.  55 

Whose  works  sound  a  depth  by  Life's  quiet  unshaken, 
Such  as  Shakspeare,  for  instance,  the  Bible,  and  Bacon, 
Not  to  mention  my  own  works  ;  Time's  nadir  is  fleet, 
And,  as  for  myself,  I'm  quite  out  of  conceit," — 

"  Quite  out  of  conceit !  I'm  enchanted  to  hear  it," 
Cried  ,£pp(5Jlo  aside,  "  Who'd  have  thought  she  was  near  it  ? 
To  be  sure  one  is  apt  to  exhaust  those  commodities 
He  uses  too  fast,  yet  in  this  case  as  odd  it  is 
As  if  Neptune  should  say  to  his  turbots  and  whitings, 
*  I'm  as  much  out  of  salt  as  Miranda's  own  writings,' 
(Which,  as  she  in  her  own  happy  manner  has  said, 
Sound  a  depth,  for  'tis  one  of  the  functions  of  lead.) 
She  often  has  asked  me  if  I  could  not  find 
A  place  somewhere  near  me  that  suited  her  mind  ; 
I  know  but  a  single  one  vacant,  which  she, 
With  her  rare  talent  that  way,  would  fit  to  a  T. 
And  it  would  not  imply  any  pause  or  cessation 
In  the  work  she  esteems  her  peculiar  vocation, — 
She  may  enter  on  duty  to-day,  if  she  chooses, 
And  remain  Tiring- woman  for  life  to  the  Muses." 

(Miranda  meanwhile  has  succeeded  in  driving 
Up  into  a  corner,  in  spite  of  their  striving, 
A  small  flock  of  terrified  victims,  and  there, 
With  an  I-turn-the-crarik-of-the-Universe  air 


56  A    FABLE    FOR   THE    CEITICS. 

And  a  tone  which,  at  least  to  my  fancy,  appears 
Not  so  much  to  be  entering  as  boxing  your  ears, 
Is  unfolding  a  tale  (of  herself,  I  surmise,) 
For  'tis  dotted  as  thick  as  a  peacock's  with  I's.) 
Apropos  of  Miranda,  I'll  rest  on  my  oars 
And  drift  through  a  trifling  digression  on  bores, 
For,  though  not  wearing  ear-rings  in  more  majorum, 
Our  ears  are  kept  bored  just  as  if  we  still  wore  'em. 
There  was  one  feudal  custom  worth  keeping,  at  least, 
Roasted  bores  made  a  part  of  each  well-ordered  feast, 
And  of  all  quiet  pleasures  the  very  ne  plus 
Was  in  hunting  wild  bores  as  the  tame  ones  hunt  us. 
Archseologians,  I  know,  who  have  personal  fears 
Of  this  wise  application  of  hounds  and  of  spears, 
Have  tried  to  make  out,  with  a  zeal  more  than  wonted, 
'Twas  a  kind  of  wild  swine  that  our  ancestors  hunted ; 
But  I'll  never  believe  that  the  age  which  has  strewn 
Europe  o'er  with  cathedrals,  and  otherwise  shown 
'That  it  knew  what  was  what,  could  by  chance  not  have  known, 
•(Spending,  too,  its  chief  time  with  its  buff  on,  no  doubt,) 
Which  beast  'twould  improve  the  world  most  to  thin  out. 
I  divide  bores  myself,  in  the  manner  of  rifles, 
Into  two  great  divisions,  regardless  of  trifles ; — 
There's  your  smooth-bore  and  screw-bore,  who  do  not  much 

vary 
In  the  weight  of  cold  lead  they  respectively  carry. 


A   FABLE    FOR   THE   CRITICS. 


57 


The  smooth-bore  is  one  in  whose  essence  the  mind 

Not  a  corner  nor  cranny  to  cling  by  can  find ; 

You  feel  as  in  nightmares  sometimes,  when  you  slip 

Down  a  steep  slated  roof  where  there's  nothing  to  grip, 

You  slide  and  you  slide,  the  blank  horror  increases, 

Y"ou  had  rather  by  far  be  at  once  smashed  to  pieces, 

You  fancy  a  whirlpool  below  white  and  frothing, 

And  finally  drop  off  and  light  upon — nothing. 

The  screw-bore  has  twists  in  him,  faint  predilections 

For  going  just  wrong  in  the  tritest  directions ; 

When  he's  wrong  he  is  flat,  when  he's  right  he  can't  show  it, 

He'll  tell  you  what  Snooks  said  about  the  new  poet,* 

Or  how  Fogrum  was  outraged  by  Tennyson's  Princess ; 

He  has  spent  all  his  spare  time  and  intellect  since  his 

Birth  in  perusing,  on  each  art  and  science, 

Just  the  books  in  which  no  one  puts  any  reliance, 

And  though  nemo,  we're  told,  horis  omnibus  sapit, 

The  rule  will  not  fit  him,  however  you  shape  it, 

For  he  has  a  perennial  foison  of  sappiness ; 

He  has  just  enough  force  to  spoil  half  your  day's  happiness, 

And  to  make  him  a  sort  of  mosquito  to  be  with, 

But  just  not  enough  to  dispute  or  agree  with. 

These  sketches  I  made  (not  to  be  too  explicit) 
From  two  honest  fellows  who  made  me  a  visit, 

*  (If  you  call  Snooks  an  owl,  he  will  show  by  his  looks 
That  he's  morally  certain  you're  jealous  of  Snooks.) 


58  .'•'..#.  FABLE   FOR   THE   CRITICS. 

>X 

And  broke,  like  the  tale  of  the  Bear  and  the  Fiddle, 

My  reflections  on  Halleck  short  off  by  the  middle ; 

I  shall  not  now  go  into  the  subject  more  deeply, 

For  I  notice  that  some  of  my  readers  look  sleep 'ly, 

I  will  barely  remark  that,  'mongst  civilized  nations, 

There's  none  that  displays  more  exemplary  patience 

Under  all  sorts  of  boring,  at  all  sorts  of  hours, 

From  all  sorts  of  desperate  persons,  than  ours. 

Not  to  speak  of  our  papers,  our  State  legislatures, 

And  other  such  trials  for  sensitive  natures, 

Just  look  for  a  moment  at  Congress, — appalled, 

My  fancy  shrinks  back  from  the  phantom  it  called ; 

Why,  there's  scarcely  a  member  unworthy  to  frown 

'Neath  what  Fourier  nicknames  the  Boreal  crown ; 

Only  think  what  that  infinite  bore-pow'r  could  do 

If  applied  with  a  utilitarian  view  • 

Suppose,  for  example,  we  shipped  it  with  care 

To  Sahara's  great  desert  and  let  it  bore  there, 

If  they  held  one  short  session  and  did  nothing  else, 

They'd  fill  the  whole  waste  with  Artesian  wells. 

But  'tis  time  now  with  pen  phonographic  to  follow 

Through  some  more  of  his  sketches  our  laughing  A^pollo 

"  There  comes  Harry  Franco,  and,  as  he  draws  near, 
You  find  that's  a  smile  which  you  took  for  a  sneer ; 
One  half  of  him  contradicts  t'other,  his  wont 


A   FABLE   FOR   THE   CRITICft.  &A          &    rr   59 


Is  to  say  very  sharp  things  and  do  very  blunt  ; 

His  manner  's  as  hard  as  his  feelings  are  tender, 

And  a  sortie  he'll  make  when  he  means  to  surrender  ; 

He's  in  joke  half  the  time  when  he  seems  to  be  sternest, 

When  he  seems  to  be  joking,  be  sure  he's  in  earnest  ; 

He  has  common  sense  in  a  way  that's  uncommon, 

Hates  humbug  and  cant,  loves  his  friends  like  a  woman, 

Builds  his  dislikes  of  cards  and  his  friendships  of  oak, 

Loves  a  prejudice  better  than  aught  but  a  joke, 

Is  half  upright  Quaker,  half  downright  Gome-outer, 

Loves  Freedom  too  well  to  go  stark  mad  about  her, 

Quite  artless  himself  is  a  lover  of  Art, 

Shuts  you  out  of  his  secrets  and  into  his  heart, 

And  though  not  a  poet,  yet  all  must  admire 

In  his  letters  of  Pinto  his  skill  on  the  liar., 

"  There  comes  Poe  with  his  raven,  like  Barnaby  Rudge, 
Three-fifths  of  him  genius  and  two-fifths  sheer  fudge, 
Who  talks  like  a  book  of  iambs  and  pentameters, 
In  a  way  to  make  people  of  common-sense  damn  metres, 
Who  has  written  some  things  quite  the  best  of  their  kind, 
But  the  heart  somehow  seems  all  squeezed  out  by  the  mind, 
Who  —  but  hey-day  !  What's  this?  Messieurs  Mathews  and  Poe, 
You  mustn't  fling  mud-balls  at  Longfellow  so, 
Does  it  make  a  man  worse  that  his  character's  such 
As  to  make  his  friends  love  him  (as  you  think)  too  much  ? 


00  A    FABLE    FOR    THE    CRITICS. 

Why,  there  is  not  a  bard  at  this  moment  alive 

More  willing  than  he  that  his  fellows  should  thrive ; 

While  you  are  abusing  him  thus,  even  now 

He  would  help  either  one  of  you  out  of  a  slough  ; 

You  may  say  that  he's  smooth  and  all  that  till  you're  hoarse, 

But  remember  that  elegance  also  is  force  ; 

After  polishing  granite  as  much  as  you  will, 

The  heart  keeps  its  tough  old  persistency  still ; 

Deduct  all  you  can  that  still  keeps  you  at  bay, — 

Why,  he'll  live  till  men  weary  of  Collins  and  Gray ; 

I'm  not  over- fond  of  Greek  metres  in  English, 

To  me  rhyme  's  a  gain,  so  it  be  not  too  jinglish, 

And  your  modern  hexameter  verses  are  no  more 

Like  Greek  ones  than  sleek  Mr.  Pope  is  like  Homer ; 

As  the  roar  of  the  sea  to  the  coo  of  a  pigeon  is, 

So,  compared  to  your  moderns,  sounds  old  Melesigenes ; 

1  may  be  too  partial,  the  reason,  perhaps,  o't  is 

That  I've  heard  the  old  blind  man  recite  his  own  rhapsodies, 

And  my  ear  with  that  music  impregnate  may  be, 

Like  the  poor  exiled  shell  with  the  soul  of  the  sea, 

Or  as  one  can't  bear  Strauss  when  his  nature  is  cloven 

To  its  deeps  within  deeps  by  the  stroke  of  Beethoven ; 

But,  set  that  aside,  and  'tis  truth  that  I  speak, 

Had  Theocritus  written  in  English,  not  Greek, 

I  believe  that  his  exquisite  sense  would  scarce  change  a  line 

In  that  rare,  tender,  virgin-like  pastoral  Evangeline. 


A    FABLE    FOR    THE    CRITICS.  61 

That's  not  ancient  nor  modern,  its  place  is  apart 
Where  time  has  no  sway,  in  the  realm  of  pure  Art, 
'Tis  a  shrine  of  retreat  from  Earth's  hubbub  and  strife 
As  quiet  and  chaste  as  the  author's  own  life. 

"  There  comes  Philothea,  her  face  all  a-glow, 
She  has  just  been  dividing  some  poor  creature's  woe 
And  can't  tell  which  pleases  her  most,  to  relieve 
His  want,  or  his  story  to  hear  and  believe  ; 
No  doubt  against  many  deep  griefs  she  prevails, 
For  her  ear  is  the  refuge  of  destitute  tales ; 
She  knows  well  that  silence  is  sorrow's  best  food, 
And  that  talking  draws  off  from  the  heart  its  black  blood, 
So  she'll  listen  with  patience  and  let  you  unfold 
Your  bundle  of  rags  as  'twere  pure  cloth  of  gold, 
Which,  indeed,  it  all  turns  to  as  soon  as  she's  touched  it, 
And,  (to  borrow  a  phrase  from  the  nursery,)  mucked  it, 
She  has  such  a  musical  taste,  she  will  go 
Any  distance  to  hear  one  who  draws  a  long  bow  ; 
She  will  swallow  a  wonder  by  mere  might  and  main 
And  thinks  it  geometry's  fault  if  she's  fain 
To  consider  things  flat,  inasmuch  as  they're  plain ; 
Facts  with  her  are  accomplished,  as  Frenchmen  would  say, 
They  will  prove  all  she  wishes  them  to — either  way, 
And,  as  fact  lies  on  this  side  or  that,  we  must  try, 
If  we're  seeking  the  truth,  to  find  where  it  don't  lie  ; 


02  A    FABLE    FOR    THE    CRITICS. 

I  was  telling  her  once  of  a  marvellous  aloe 

That  for  thousands  of  years  had  looked  spindling  and  sallow, 

And,  though  nursed  by  the  fruitfullest  powers  of  mud, 

Had  never  vouchsafed  e'en  so  much  as  a  bud, 

Till  its  owner  remarked,  as  a  sailor,  you  know, 

Often  will  in  a  calm,  that  it  never  would  blow, 

For  he  wished  to  exhibit  the  plant,  and  designed 

That  its  blowing  should  help  him  in  raising  the  wind  ; 

At  last  it  was  told  him  that  if  he  should  water 

Its  roots  with  the  blood  of  his  unmarried  daughter, 

(Who  was  born,  as  her  mother,  a  Calvinist  said, 

With  a  Baxter's  effectual  call  on  her  head,) 

It  would  blow  as  the  obstinate  breeze  did  when  by  a 

Like  decree  of  her  father  died  Iphigenia ; 

At  first  he  declared  he  himself  would  be  blowed 

Ere  his  conscience  with  such  a  foul  crime  he  would  load, 

But  the  thought,  coming  oft,  grew  less  dark  than  before, 

And  he  mused,  as  each  creditor  knocked  at  his  door, 

If  this  were  but  done  they  would  dun  me  no  more ; 

I  told  Philothea  his  struggles  and  doubts', 

And  how  he  considered  the  ins  and  the  outs 

Of  the  visions  he  had,  and  the  dreadful  dyspepsy, 

How  he  went  to  the  seer  that  lives  at  Po'keepsie, 

How  the  seer  advised  him  to  sleep  on  it  first 

And  to  read  his  big  volume  in  case  of  the  worst, 

And  further  advised  he  should  pay  him  five  dollars 


A   FABLE    FOR   THE    CRITICS.  63 


For  writing  f^ttltt,  l^UWl,  on  his  wristbands  and  collars  ; 

Three  years  and  ten  days  these  dark  words  he  had  studied 

When  the  daughter  was  missed,  and  the  aloe  had  budded  ; 

I  told  how  he  watched  it  grow  large  and  more  large, 

And  wondered  how  much  for  the  show  he  should  charge,— 

She  had  listened  with  utter  indifference  to  this,  till 

I  told  how  it  bloomed,  and  discharging  its  pistil 

With  an  aim  the  Eumenides  dictated,  shot 

The  botanical  filicide  dead  on  the  spot  ; 

It  had  blown,  but  he  reaped  not  his  horrible  gains, 

For  it  blew  with  such  force  as  to  blow  out  his  brains, 

And  the  crime  was  blown  also,  because  on  the  wad, 

Which  was  paper,  was  writ  '  Visitation  of  God,' 

As  well  as  a  thrilling  account  of  the  deed 

Which  the  coroner  kindly  allowed  me  to  read. 

"  Well,  my  friend  took  this  story  up  just,  to  be  sure, 
As  one  might  a  poor  foundling  that's  laid  at  one's  door; 
She  combed  it  and  washed  it  and  clothed  it  and  fed  it, 
And  as  if  'twere  her  own  child  most  tenderly  bred  it, 
Laid  the  scene  (of  the  legend,  I  mean,)  far  away  a- 
•mong  the  green  vales  underneath  Himalaya. 
And  by  artist-like  touches,  laid  on  here  and  there, 
Made  the  whole  thing  so  touching,  I  frankly  declare 
I  have  read  it  all  thrice,  and,  perhaps  I  am  weak, 
But  I  found  every  time  there  were  tears  on  my  cheek- 


64  A    FABLE    FOR    THE    CRITICS. 

"  The  pole,  science  tells  us,  the  magnet  controls, 
But  she  is  a  magnet  to  emigrant  Poles, 
And  folks  with  a  mission  that  nobody  knows, 
Throng  thickly  about  her  as  bees  round  a  rose  ; 
She  can  fill  up  the  carets  in  such,  make  their  scope 
Converge  to  some  focus  of  rational  hope, 
And,  with  sympathies  fresh  as  the  morning,  their  gall 
Can  transmute  into  honey, — but  this  is  not  all ; 
Not  only  for  those  she  has  solace,  oh,  say, 
Vice's  desperate  nursling  adrift  in  Broadway, 
Who  clingest,  with  all  that  is  left  of  thee  human, 
To  the  last  slender  spar  from  the  wreck  of  the  woman, 
Hast  thou  not  found  one  shore  where  those  tired  drooping  feel 
Could  reach  firm  mother-earth,  one  full  heart  on  whose  beat 
The  soothed  head  in  silence  reposing  could  hear 
The  chimes  of  far  childhood  throb  thick  on  the  ear  ? 
Ah,  there's  many  a  beam  from  the  fountain  of  day 
That  to  reach  us  unclouded,  must  pass,  on  its  way, 
Through  the  soul  of  a  woman,  and  hers  is  wide  ope 
To  the  influence  of  Heaven  as  the  blue  eyes  of  Hope  ; 
Yes,  a  great  soul  is  hers,  one  that  dares  to  go  in 
To  the  prison,  the  slave-hut,  the  alleys  of  sin, 
And  to  bring  into  each,  or  to  find  there,  some  line 
Of  the  never  completely  out-trampled  divine  ; 
If  her  heart  at  high  floods  swamps  her  brain  now  and  then, 
'Tis  but  richer  for  that  when  the  tide  ebbs  agen, 


A    FABLE    FOR   THE   CRITICS. 


65 


As,  after  old  Nile  has  subsided,  his  plain 
Overflows  with  a  second  broad  deluge  of  grain ; 
What  a  wealth  would  it  bring  to  the  narrow  and  sour 
Could  they  be  as  a  Child  but  for  one  little  hour ! 

"  What !  Irving?  thrice  welcome,  warm  heart  and  fine  brain, 
You  bring  back  the  happiest  spirit  from  Spain, 
And  the  gravest  sweet  humor,  that  ever  were  there 
Since  Cervantes  met  death  in  his  gentle  despair ; 
Nay,  don't  be  embarrassed,  nor  look  so  beseeching, — 
I  shan't  run  directly  against  my  own  preaching, 
And,  having  just  laughed  at  their  Raphaels  and  Dantes, 
Go  to  setting  you  up  beside  matchless  Cervantes ; 
But  allow  me  to  speak  what  I  honestly  feel, — 
To  a  true  poet-heart  add  the  fun  of  Dick  Steele, 
Throw  in  all  of  Addison,  minus  the  chill, 
With  the  whole  of  that  partnership's  stock  and  good  will, 
Mix  well,  and  while  stirring,  hum  o'er,  as  a  spell, 
The  fine  old  English  Gentleman,  simmer  it  well, 
Sweeten  just  to  your  own  private  liking,  then  strain, 
That  only  the  finest  and  clearest  remain, 
Let  it  stand  out  of  doors  till  a  soul  it  receives 
From  the  warm  lazy  sun  loitering  down  through  green  leaves, 
And  you'll  find  a  choice  nature,  not  wholly  deserving 
A  name  either  English  or  Yankee, — just  Irving. 


60  A    FABLE    FOR    THE    CRITICS. 

"  There  goes, — but  stet  nominis  umbra, — his  name 
You'll  be  glad  enough,  some  day  or  other,  to  claim, 
And  will  all  crowd  about  him  and  swear  that  you  knew  him 
If  some  English  hack-critic  should  chance  to  review  him ; 
The  old  porcos  ante  ne  projiciatis 
MARGARITAS,  for  him  you  have  verified  gratis ; 
What  matters-  his  name  ?     Why,  it  may  be  Sylvester, 
Judd,  Junior,  or  Junius,  Ulysses,  or  Nestor, 
For  aught  I  know  or  care ;  'tis  enough  that  I  look 
On  the  author  of  « Margaret,'  the  first  Yankee  book 
With  the  soul  of  Down  East  in't,  and  things  farther  East, 
As  far  as  the  threshold  of  morning,  at  least, 
Where  awaits  the  fair  dawn  of  the  simple  and  true, 
Of  the  day  that  comes  slowly  to  make  all  things  new. 
JT  has  a  smack  of  pine  woods,  of  bare  field  and  bleak  hill 
Such  as  only  the  breed  of  the  Mayflower  could  till ; 
The  Puritan  's  shown  in  it,  tough  to  the  core, 
Such  as  prayed,  smiting  Agag  on  red  Marston  moor; 
With  an  unwilling  humor,  half-choked  by  the  drouth 
In  brown  hollows  about  the  inhospitable  mouth ; 
With  a  soul  full  of  poetry,  though  it  has  qualms 
About  finding  a  happiness  out  of  the  Psalms ; 
:Full  of  tenderness,  too,  though  it  shrinks  in  the  dark, 
Hamadryad-like,  under  the  coarse,  shaggy  bark ; 
That  sees  visions,  knows  wrestlings  of  God  with  the  Will, 
And  has  its  own  Sinais  and  thunderings  still." — 


A    FABLE    FOR    THE    CRITICS.  67 

Here, — "  Forgive  me,  Apollo,"  I  cried,  "  while  I  pour 
My  heart  out  to  my  birth-place  :  O,  loved  more  and  more 
Dear  Baystate,  from  whose  rocky  bosom  thy  sons 
Should  suck  milk,  strong-will-giving,  brave,  such  as  runs 
In  the  veins  of  old  Graylock, — who  is  it  that  dares 
Call  thee  'pedler,  a  soul  wrapt  in  bank-books  and  shares  ? 
It  is  false !    She's  a  Poet !  I  see,  as  I  write, 
Along  the  far  railroad  the  steam-snake  glide  white, 
The  cataract-throb  of  her  mill-hearts  I  hear, 
The  swift  strokes  of  trip-hammers  weary  my  ear, 
Sledges  ring  upon  anvils,  through  logs  the  saw  screams, 
Blocks  swing  up  to  their  place,  beetles  drive  home  the  beams  : — • 
It  is  songs  such  as  these  that  she  croons  to  the  din 
Of  her  fast-flying  shuttles,  year  out  and  year  in, 
While  from  earth's  farthest  corner  there  comes  not  a  breeze 
But  wafts  her  the  buzz  of  her  gold-gleaning  bees  : 
What  though  those  horn  hands  have  as  yet  found  small  time 
For  painting  and  sculpture  and  music  and  rhyme  ? 
These  will  come  in  due  order,  the  need  that  pressed  sorest 
Was  to  vanquish  the  seasons,  the  ocean,  the  forest, 
To  bridle  and  harness  the  rivers,  the  steam, 
Making  that  whirl  her  mill-wheels,  this  tug  in  her  team, 
To  vassalize  old  tyrant  Winter,  and  make 
Him  delve  surlily  for  her  on  river  and  lake  ; — 
When  this  New  World  was  parted,  she  strove  not  to  shirk 
Her  lot  in  the  heirdom,  the  tough,  silent  Work, 


68  A    FABLE    FOR    THE    CRITICS. 

The  hero-share  ever,  from  Herakles  down 

To  Odin,  the  Earth's  iron  sceptre  and  crown  ; 

Yes,  thou  dear,  noble  Mother !  if  ever  men's  praise 

Couid  be  claimed  for  creating  heroical  lays, 

Thou  hast  won  it ;  if  ever  the  laurel  divine 

Crowned  the  Maker  and  Builder,  that  glory  is  thine  ! 

Thy  songs  are  right  epic,  they  tell  how  this  rude 

Rock-rib  of  our  earth  here  was  tamed  and  subdued ; 

Thou  hast  written  them  plain  on  the  face  of  the  planet 

In  brave,  deathless  letters  of  iron  and  granite ; 

Thou  hast  printed  them  deep  for  all  time ;  they  are  set 

From  the  same  runic  type-fount  and  alphabet 

With  thy  stout  Berkshire  hills  and  the  arms  of  thy  Bay, — 

They  are  staves  from  the  burly  old  Mayflower  lay. 

If  the  drones  of  the  Old  World,  in  querulous  ease, 

Ask  thy  Art  and  thy  Letters,  point  proudly  to  these, 

Or,  if  they  deny  these  are  Letters  and  Art, 

Toil  on  with  the  same  old  invincible  heart ; 

Thou  art  rearing  the  pedestal  broad-based  and  grand 

Whereon  the  fair  shapes  of  the  Artist  shall  stand, 

And  creating,  through  labors  undaunted  and  long, 

The  true  theme  for  all  Sculpture  and  Painting  and  Song  ! 

"  But  my  good  mother  Baystate  wants  no  praise  of  mine. 
She  learned  from  her  mother  a  precept  divine 
About  something  that  butters  no  parsnips,  her  forte 


A   FABLE    FOR    THE   CRITICS.  69 

In  another  direction  lies,  work  is  her  sport, 

(Though  she'll  curtsey  and  set  her  cap  straight,  that  she  will, 

If  you  talk  about  Plymouth  and  one  Bunker's  hill.) 

The  dear,  notable  goodwife  !  by  this  time  of  night, 

Her  hearth  is  swept  clean,  and  her  fire  burning  bright, 

And  she  sits  in  a  chair  (of  home  plan  and  make)  rocking, 

Musing  much,  all  the  while,  as  she  darns  on  a  stocking, 

Whether  turkeys  will  come  pretty  high  next  Thanksgiving, 

Whether  flour  '11  be  so  dear,  for,  as  sure  as  she's  living, 

She  will  use  rye-and-injun  then,  whether  the  pig 

By  this  time  ain't  got  pretty  tolerable  big, 

And  whether  to  sell  it  outright  will  be  best, 

Or  to  smoke  hams  and  shoulders  and  salt  down  the  rest, — 

At  this  minute,  she'd  swop  all  my  verses,  ah,  cruel ! 

For  the  last  patent  stove  that  is  saving  of  fuel ; 

So  I'll  just  let  Apollo  go  on,  for  his  phiz 

Shows  I've  kept  him  awaiting  too  long  as  it  is." 

"  If  our  friend,  there,  who  seems  a  reporter,  is  through 
With  his  burst  of  emotion,  our  theme  we'll  pursue," 
Said  Apollo ;  some  smiled,  and,  indeed,  I  must  own 
There  was  something  sarcastic,  perhaps,  in  his  tone  ; — 

"  There's  Holmes,  who  is  matchless  among  you  for  wit ; 
A  Leyden-jar  always  full-charged,  from  which  flit 
The  electrical  tingles  of  hit  after  hit ; 


70  A    FABLE    FOR    THE    CRITICS. 

In  long  poems  'tis  painful  sometimes  and  invites 

A  thought  of  the  way  the  new  Telegraph  writes, 

Which  pricks  down  its  little  sharp  sentences  spitefully 

As  if  you  got  more  than  you'd  title  to  rightfully, 

And  if  it  were  hoping  its  wild  father  Lightning 

Would  flame  in  for  a  second  and  give  you  a  fright'ning. 

He  has  perfect  sway  of  what  /  call  a  sham  metre, 

But  many  admire  it,  the  English  hexameter, 

And  Campbell,  I  think,  wrote  most  commonly  worse, 

With  less  nerve,  swing,  and  fire  in  the  same  kind  of  verse, 

Nor  e'er  achieved  aught  in't  so  worthy  of  praise 

As  the  tribute  of  Holmes  to  the  grand  Marseillaise. 

irou  went  crazy  last  year  over  Bulwer's  New  Timon  ; — 

Why,  if  B.,  to  the  day  of  his  dying,  should  rhyme  on, 

Heaping  verses  on  verses  and  tomes  upon  tomes, 

He  could  ne'er  reach  the  best  point  and  vigor  of  Holmes. 

His  are  just  the  fine  hands,  too,  to  weave  you  a  lyric 

Full  of  fancy,  fun,  feeling,  or  spiced  with  satyric 

In  so  kindly  a  measure,  that  nobody  knows 

What  to  do  but  e'en  join  in  the  laugh,  friends  and  foes. 

"  There  is  Lowell,  who's  striving  Parnassus  to  climb 
With  a  whole  bale  of  isms  tied  together  with  rhyme, 
He  might  get  on  alone,  spite  of  brambles  and  boulders, 
But  he  can't  with  that  bundle  he  has  on  his  shoulders, 
The  top  of  the  hill  he  will  ne'er  come  nigh  reaching 


A    FABLE    FOR    THE    CRITICS.  71 

Till  he  learns  the  distinction  'twixt  singing  and  preaching ; 
His  lyre  has  some  chords  that  would  ring  pretty  well, 
But  he'd  rather  by  half  make  a  drum  of  the  shell, 
And  rattle  away  till  he's  old  as  Methusalem, 
At  the  head  of  a  march  to  the  last  new  Jerusalem. 

"  There  goes  Halleck,  whose  Fanny's  a  pseudo  Don  Juan, 
With  the  wickedness  out  that  gave  salt  to  the  true  one, 
He's  a  wit,  though,  I  hear,  of  the  very  first  order, 
And  once  made  a  pun  on  the  words  soft  Recorder ; 
More  than  this,  he's  a  very  great  poet,  I'm  told, 
And  has  had  his  works  published  in  crimson  and  gold, 
With  something  they  call  '  Illustrations,'  to  wit, 
Like  those  with  which  Chapman  obscured  Holy  Writ,* 
Which  are  said  to  illustrate,  because,  as  I  view  it, 
Like  lucus  a  non,  they  precisely  don't  do  it ; 
Let  a  man  who  can  write  what  himself  understands 
Keep  clear,  if  he  can,  of  designing  men's  hands, 
Who  bury  the  sense,  if  there's  any  worth  having, 
And  then  very  honestly  call  it  engraving. 
But,  to  quit  badinage,  which  there  isn't  much  wit  in, 
No  doubt  Halleck's  better  than  all  he  has  written ; 
In  his  verse  a  clear  glimpse  you  will  frequently  find, 
If  not  of  a  great,  of  a  fortunate  mind, 
Which  contrives  to  be  true  to  its  natural  loves 

*  (Cuts  rightly  called  wooden,  as  all  must  admit.) 


72  A    FABLE    FOR    THE    CRITICS. 

In  a  world  of  back-offices,  ledgers  and  stoves. 

When  his  heart  breaks  away  from  the  brokers  and  banks, 

And  kneels  in  its  own  private  shrine  to  give  thanks, 

There's  a  genial  manliness  in  him  that  earns 

Our  sincerest  respect,  (read,  for  instance,  his  "  Burns,") 

And  we  can't  but  regret  (seek  excuse  where  we  may) 

That  so  much  of  a  man  has  been  peddled  away. 

"  But  what's  that  ?  a  mass-meeting  ?    No,  there  come  in  lots 
The  American  Disraelis,  Bulwers,  and  Scotts, 
And  in  short  the  American  everything-elses, 
Each  charging  the  others  with  envies  and  jealousies  ; — 
By  the  way,  'tis  a  fact  that  displays  what  profusions 
Of  all  kinds  of  gr.eatness  bless  free  institutions, 
That  while  the  Old  World  has  produced  barely  eight 
Of  such  poets  as  all  men  agree  to  call  great, 
And  of  other  great  characters  hardly  a  score, 
(One  might  safely  say  less  than  that  rather  than  more,) 
With  you  every  year  a  whole  crop  is  begotten, 
They're  as  much  of  a  staple  as  corn,  or  as  cotton ; 
AVhy,  there's  scarcely  a  huddle  of  log-huts  and  shanties 
That  has  not  brought  forth  its  own  Miltons  and  Dantes ; 
I  myself  know  ten  Byrons,  one  Coleridge,  three  Shelleys, 
Two  Raphaels,  six  Titians,  (I  think)  one  Apelles, 
Leonardos  and  Rubenses  plenty  as  lichens, 
One  (but  that  one  is  plenty)  American  Dickens, 


A    FABLE    FOR    THE    CRITICS. 

A  whole  flock  of  Lambs,  any  number  of  Tennysons,-— 

In  short,  if  a  man  has  the  luck  to  have  any  sons, 

He  may  feel  pretty  certain  that  one  out  of  twain 

Will  be  some  very  great  person  over  again. 

There  is  one  inconvenience  in  all  this  which  lies 

In  the  fact  'that  by  contrast  we  estimate  size,* 

And,  where  there  are  none  except  Titans,  great  stature 

Is  only  a  simple  proceeding  of  nature. 

What  puff  the  strained  sails  of  your  praise  shall  you  furl  at,  if 

The  calmest  degree  that  you  know  is  superlative  ? 

At  Rome,  all  whom  Charon  took  into  his  wherry  must, 

As  a  matter  of  course,  be  well  issimused  and  errimused, 

A  Greek,  too,  could  feel,  while  in  that  famous  boat  he  tost, 

That  his  friends  would  take  care  he  was  wroged  and  wi 

And  formerly  we,  as  through  grave-yards  we  past, 

Thought  the  world  went  from  bad  to  worse  fearfully  fast ; 

Let  us  glance  for  a  moment,  'tis  well  worth  the  pains, 

And  note  what  an  average  grave-yard  contains ; 

There  lie  levellers  levelled,  duns  done  up  themselves, 

There  are  booksellers  finally  laid  on  their  shelves, 

Horizontally  there  lie  upright  politicians, 

Dose-a-dose  with  their  patients  sleep  faultless  physicians, 

There  are  slave-drivers  quietly  whipt  under-ground, 

*  That  is  in  most  cases  we  do,  but  not  all, 

Past  a  doubt,  there  are  men  who  are  innately  small, 
Such  as  Blank,  who,  without  being  'minished  a  tittle, 
Might  stand  for  a  type  of  the  Absolute  Little. 


A    FABLE    FOR    THE    CRITICS. 

There  bookbinders,  done  up  in  boards,  are  fast  bound, 
There  card-players  wait  till  the  last  trump  be  played, 
There  all  the  choice  spirits  get  finally  laid, 
There  the  babe  that's  unborn  is  supplied  with  a  berth, 
There  men  without  legs  get  their  six  feet  of  earth, 
There  lawyers  repose,  each  wrapt  up  in  his  case, 
There  seekers  of  office  are  sure  of  a  place, 
There  defendant  and  plaintiff  get  equally  cast, 
There  shoemakers  quietly  stick  to  the  last, 
There  brokers  at  length  become  silent  as  stocks, 
There  stage-drivers  sleep  without  quitting  their  box, 
And  so  forth  and  so  forth  and  so  forth  and  so  on, 
With  this  kind  of  stuff  one  might  endlessly  go  on  ; 
To  come  to  the  point,  I  may  safely  assert  you 
Will  find  in  each  yard  every  cardinal  virtue  ;* 
Each  has  six  truest  patriots :  four  discoverers  of  ether, 
Who  never  had  thought  on't  nor  mentioned  it  either  : 
Ten  poets,  the  greatest  who  ever  wrote  rhyme  : 
Two  hundred  and  forty  first  men  of  their  time : 
One  person  whose  portrait  just  gave  the  least  hint 
Its  original  had  a  most  horrible  squint : 
One  critic,  most  (what  do  they  call  it  ?)  reflective, 
Who  never  had  used  the  phrase  ob-  or  subjective  : 
Forty  fathers  of  Freedom,  of  whom  twenty  bred 

'  (And  at  this  just  conclusion  will  surely  arrive, 

That  the  goodness  of  earth  is  more  dead  than  alive.) 


A    FABLE    FOR    THE    CRITICS. 

Their  sons  lor  the  rice-swamps,  at  so  much  a  head, 

And  their  daughters  for — faugh  !  thirty  mothers  of  Gracchi : 

Non-resistants  who  gave  many  a  spiritual  black-eye  : 

Eight  true  friends  of  their  kind,  one  of  whom  was  a  jailor  : 

Four  captains  almost  as  astounding  as  Taylor  : 

Two  dozen  of  Italy's  exiles  who  shoot  us  his 

Kaisership  daily,  stern  pen-and-ink  Brutuses, 

Who,  in  Yankee  back-parlors,  with  crucified  smile,* 

Mount  serenely  their  country's  funereal  pile  : 

Ninety-nine  Irish  heroes,  ferocious  rebellers 

'Gainst  the  Saxon  in  cis-marine  garrets  and  cellars, 

Who  shake  their  dread  fists  o'er  the  sea  and  all  that, — 

As  long  as  a  copper  drops  into  the  hat : 

Nine  hundred  Teutonic  republicans  stark 

From  Vaterland's  battles  just  won — in  the  Park, 

Who  the  happy  profession  of  martyrdom  take 

Whenever  it  gives  them  a  chance  at  a  steak  : 

Sixty-two  second  Washingtons  :  two  or  three  Jacksons : 

And  so  many  everythings  else  that  it  racks  one's 

Poor  memory  too  much  to  continue  the  list, 

Especially  now  they  no  longer  exist ; — 

I  would  merely  observe  that  you  've  taken  to  giving 

The  puffs  that  belong  to  the  dead  to  the  living, 

And  that  somehow  your  trump-of-contemporary-doom's  tones 

Is  tuned  after  old  dedications  and  tombstones." — 

*  Not  forgetting  their  tea  and  their  toast,  though,  the  while. 


A    FABLE    FOR    THE    CRITICS. 

Here  the  critic  came  in  and  a  thistle  presented*^ 
From  a  frown  to  a  smile  the  god's  features  relented, 
As  he  stared  at  his  envoy,  who,  swelling  with  pride, 
To  the  god's  asking  look,  nothing  daunted,  replied, 
"  You're  surprised,  I  suppose,  I  was  absent  so  long, 
But  your  godship  respecting  the  lilies  was  wrong ; 
I  hunted  the  garden  from  one  end  to  t'other, 
And  got  no  reward  but  vexation  and  bother, 
Till,  tossed  out  with  weeds  in  a  corner  to  wither, 
This  one  lily  I  found  and  made  haste  to  bring  hither." 

"  Did  he  think  I  had  given  him  a  book  to  review  ? 
I  ought  to  have  known  what  the  fellow  would  do," 
Muttered  Phcebus  aside,  "  for  a  thistle  will  pass 
Beyond  doubt  for  the  queen  of  all  flowers  with  an  ass ; 
He  has  chosen  in  just  the  same  way  as  he'd  choose 
His  specimens  out  of  the  books  he  reviews ; 
And  now,  as  this  offers  an  excellent  text, 
I'll  give  'em  some  brief  hints  on  criticism  next." 
So,  musing  a  moment,  he  turned  to  the  crowd, 
And,  clearing  his  voice,  spoke  as  follows  aloud, — 

"  My  friends,  in  the  happier  days  of  the  muse, 
We  were  luckily  free  from  such  things  as  reviews ; 

*  Turn  back  now  to  page — goodness  only  knows  what, 
And  take  a  fresh  hold  on  the  thread  of  ray  plot. 


A    FABLE    FOR    THE    CRITICS.  77 

Then  naught  came  between  with  its  fog  to  make  clearer 

The  heart  of  the  poet  to  that  of  his  hearer  ; 

Then  the  poet  brought  heaven  to  the  people,  and  they 

Felt  that  they,  too,  were  poets  in  hearing  his  lay  ; 

Then  the  poet  was  prophet,  the  past  in  his  soul 

Pre-created  'the  future,  both  parts  of  one  whole ; 

Then  for  him  there  was  nothing  too  great  or  too  small, 

For  one  natural  deity  sanctified  all ; 

Then  the  bard  owned  no  clipper  and  meter  of  moods 

Save  the  spirit  of  silence  that  hovers  and  broods 

O'er  the  seas  and  the  mountains,  the  rivers  and  woods  ; 

He  asked  not  earth's  verdict,  forgetting  the  clods, 

His  soul  soared  and  sang  to  an  audience  of  gods  ; 

'Twas  for  them  that  he  measured  the  thought  and  the  line, 

And  shaped  for  their  vision  the  perfect  design, 

With  as  glorious  a  foresight,  a  balance  as  true, 

As  swung  out  the  worlds  in  the  infinite  blue ; 

Then  a  glory  and  greatness  invested  man's  heart, 

The  universal,  which  now  stands  estranged  and  apart, 

In  the  free  individual  moulded,  was  Art ; 

Then  the  forms  of  the  Artist  seemed  thrilled  with  desire 

For  something  as  yet  unattained,  fuller,  higher, 

As  once  with  her  lips,  lifted.hands,  and  eyes  listening, 

And  her  whole  upward  soul  in  her  countenance  glistening, 

Eurydice  stood — like  a  beacon  unfired, 

Which,  once  touchd  with  flame,  will  leap  heav'nward  inspired — 


78  A    FABLE    FOR   THE    CRITICS. 

And  waited  with  answering  kindle  to  mark 

The  first  gleam  of  Orpheus  that  pained  the  red  Dark  , 

Then  painting,  song,  sculpture,  did  more  than  relieve 

The  need  that  men  feel  to  create  and  believe, 

And  as,  in  all  beauty,  who  listens  with  love, 

Hears  these  words  oft  repeated — '  beyond  and  above,3 

So  these  seemed  to  be  but  the  visible  sign 

Of  the  grasp  of  the  soul  after  things  more  divine ; 

They  were  ladders  the  Artist  erected  to  climb 

O'er  the  narrow  horizon  of  space  and  of  time, 

And  we  see  there  the  footsteps  by  which  men  had  gained 

To  the  one  rapturous  glimpse  of  the  never-attained, 

As  shepherds  could  erst  sometimes  trace  in  the  sod 

The  last  spurning  print  of  a  sky-cleaving" god. 

"  But  now,  on  the  poet's  dis-privacied  moods 
With  do  tliis  and  do  that  the  pert  critic  intrudes ; 
While  he  thinks  he's  been  barely  fulfilling  his  duty 
To  interpret  'twixt  men  and  their  own  sense  of  beauty, 
And  has  striven,  while  others  sought  honor  or  pelf, 
To  make  his  kind  happy  as  he  was  himself, 
He  finds  he's  been  guilty  of  horrid  offences 
In  all  kinds  of  moods,  numbers,  genders,  and  tenses ; 
He's  been  ob  and  subjective,  what  Kettle  calls  Pot, 
Precisely,  at  all  events,  what  he  ought  not, 


A   FABLE    FOR   THE    CRITICS.  79 

You  have  done  this,  says  one  judge  ;  done  that,  says  another ; 

You  should  have  done  this,  grumbles  one ;  that,  says  t'other ; 

Never  mind  what  he  touches,  one  shrieks  out  Taboo  ! 

And  while  he  is  wondering  what  he  shall  do; 

Since  each  suggests  opposite  topics  for  song, 

They  all  shout  together  you7 re  right  f  or  you're,  wrong  ! 

"  Nature  fits  all  her  children  with  something  to  do, 
He  who  would  write  and  can't  write,  can  surely  review, 
Can  set  up  a  small  booth  as  critic  and  sell  us  his 
Petty  conceit  and  his  pettier  jealousies ; 
Thus  a  lawyer's  apprentice,  just  out  of  his  teens, 
Will  do  for  the  Jeffrey  of  six  magazines ; 
Having  read  Johnson's  lives  of  the  poets  half  through, 
There's  nothing  on  earth  he's  not  competent  to ; 
He  reviews  with  as  much  nonchalance  as  he  whistles, — 
He  goes  through  a  book  and  just  picks  out  the  thistles, 
It  matters  not  whether  he  blame  or  commend, 
If  he's  bad  as  a  foe,  he's  far  worse  as  a  friend  ; 
Let  an  author  but  write  what's  above  his  popr  scope, 
And  he'll  go  to  work  gravely  and  twist  up  a  rope, 
And,  inviting  the  world  to  see  punishment  done, 
Hang  himself  up  to  bleach  in  the  wind  and  the  sun ; 
'Tis  delightful  to  see,  when  a  man  comes  along 
Who  has  any  thing  in  him  peculiar  and  strong, 


80  A    FABLE    FOR   THE    CRITICS. 

Every  cockboat  that  swims  clear  its  fierce  (pop-)  gundeck  a 

him 
And  make  as  he  passes  its  ludicrous  Peck  at  him," — 

Here  Miranda  came  up  and  began,  "  As  to  that," — 
Apollo  at  once  seized  his  gloves,  cane,  and  hat, 
And,  seeing  the  place  getting  rapidly  cleared, 
I,  too,  snatched  my  notes  and  forthwith  disappeared. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 
on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 


-Jl 


- 


LD  21-100m-6,'56 
(B9311slO)476 


General  Library 

University  of  California 

Berkeley 


B 


Rwswa 


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